Unspeakable
by Northumbrian
Summary: Michael Corner is researching time, events, and probabilities. While testing his newly-invented RANDOM system, he stumbles upon a series of impossible coincidences. What is justice? And what is unspeakable cruelty?
1. For Justice

**Co-Author's Note:  
><strong>Although this story is appearing under my pseudonym, I am responsible for no more than 50% of the words (possibly less, I haven't counted). This seven chaptered tale was co-written by myself and C_A_Campbell, we took alternate chapters and we beta read (and in my case brit-picked) for each other. The story is submitted here with C_A_Campbell's permission.  
>In deference to my co-author, who wrote this, the first chapter, and in order to keep the story looking vaguely the same throughout, rather than use the UK 'speech marks' in my chapters I have followed her lead and used US "speech marks". She uses UK spellings.<br>C_A_Campbell is writing "the killer" and I'm writing "the detective".  
>I hope that you enjoy this transatlantic collaboration.<p>

**1. For Justice** (by C_A_Campbell)

_Toni Alden_

I sat at his desk, writing a list, as across the room Karl Jugson took his last breaths.

One of my hands held the quill poised in my fingertips, and the other hand twirled the Remembrall round and round. I gazed down upon it. It glowed red, as red as fire, as red as blood, as red as my anger that I had forgotten something. I gazed at the list, reading the names. There was someone missing. I flipped back through the past pages of my journal for any possible clue.

The previous page gave two simple orders. _Extinguish the candles. Open the windows. _I had done this; this was not what I have forgotten.

The preceding page gave the answer. A newspaper clipping was folded neatly between the pages, and I carefully smoothed it out. The headline took my breath away, but I had the notion that this was not the first time I had read it, nor the first time that it had filled my heart with such vehemence.

_**Alecto Carrow Released From Prison**_**.**

Six years. Six years she had sat in Azkaban. Six years she had lived in the dark. Countless years she had stolen from innocent lives, but what was taken from her? Six years.

I could still remember the first injustice when it came to the Carrows. My heart had slipped into my stomach as I had read how, at their trial, one Carrow, the brother, Amycus, confessed to all the murders the Carrows had supposedly comitted. He would spend his life in Azkaban, but his sister, who only claimed to have done lesser crimes of assault—_Lies! Such lies!_— received twelve years.

Yet, all she had lost was six. She had been releaseed early because of her good behaviour, because she was truly repentant. As though demons could ever be repentant!

It was so unspeakably unjust, so unspeakably unfair, that it left me breathless. There was only one thing I could do to remedy this.

I wrote her name on the list.

She would be next; she did not belong at the end of the list. She did not deserve freedom. She deserved justice. And so I would bring it to her.

I looked at the Remembrall in my hand, but it still glow red. I still had forgotten something. I looked from the Remembrall to the list, and back again, but I could not will the truth into my cloudy mind. It was as though I stumbled around in the dark, searching for something I did not even know the identity of. For a moment, I could almost touch it. I could almost remember.

"Toni Alden?"

The memory was gone, far from my reach. I angrily dropped the Remembrall onto the desk and turned my head.

Jugson pushed himself up on his elbow, his arm shaking with the effort. His voice croaked as he said the name again. "Toni Alden."

I frowned at him, but then I remembered. That was my name.

"Why…" he panted, "Why are the windows open?"

They had been all shut tight when I entered, but of course, I was forced to open them. If I hadn't, I would be in the same sorry state as he was. But now with the windows open, the smell of excrement and urine floated through the window, so strong it took my strong stomach to keep me from being sick on the stained wood floor. The only relief I received from the horrific scent was the knowledge of why the stink went through there. The dragon keepers had put the dung heap close to his house, because they knew what he had done. I smiled. Now _that _was justice.

"It was necessary," I said.

"The candles…"

"Will not be relit," I said firmly. I had already Vanished them all from the room.

"You…" he struggled angrily. He reaches toward the bedside table, to where his wand had lain, but that, too, I had made disappear. I had rolled it under the bed, far from his reach, for he had lost his ability to walk long ago.

Completely spent, he slumped back on his pillow. "What…" he asked, "what is happening to me?"

There was a note of fear in his voice, and I wondered if it sounds like the fear that was in the voice of those he killed before he stole away their lives forever.

I stood and moved towards the edge of bed. The putrid smell of his vomit staining the sheets combined with the reek of dung, and I nearly added my own sick to his bedclothes. But I swallowed hard and held myself together.

"You are dying," I said. My voice was so cool, so unconcerned that it alarms me.

But the thing about watching people die was it got easier after time.

The first time I watched someone die, I had screamed and screamed and screamed, until someone had told me to be quiet and to run...run...run...run. Then there were more deaths, one after another. All of them were horrible, all of the people too young and too innocent, and I had felt as though I died with each one. But those last four had been different, hard at first, but not in the same way. Because none of the four had been innocent.

The first of the four I had watched intensely. My heart had raced as I watched her chest rise, then fall, then become completely still. I had held my breath to see if it would rise again, and when it didn't, a sob of terror broke past my lips. I ran and Apparated away. I landed in my safe flat, far away from those eyes that stared at nothing. I had fallen to the floor, sobbing, terrified, shaking. I had been so sure someone would know what I had done, but no one ever knew. No one ever realized. And when I had known I truly succeeded, my heart raced again, but this time with joy. Justice had been brought, and it had been my hands that brought it.

The second time, my hands had shaken as I began to explain why I was watching him die, why I would not help him as the blood pooled in his brain. But as the words continued to leave my mouth, my hands had ceased their trembling. The sweat that had trickled down my forehead dried. When at last he had slipped from this world, I closed his eyes with still hands and peace in my heart. Justice had been served; the world was more right than it had been moments before.

The third time, I did not get to watch him die, and, somehow, I had been disappointed. When I couldn't watch justice at work, I comforted myself knowing that it _had _worked. The fourth time had been the easiest one yet. I had no time for speeches, no time to explain why he deserved this. But he would not have understood anyway. That had been made clear as I watched him tumble to the ground, his world coming to an abrupt halt as his body landed, broken and askew. I had almost smiled as I gazed down upon him. The world was an unjust place, but that…that had been proof it may become just once more.

Now, here I stood, the fifth time and there was no fear, no regret, not even the racing of the heart. I was calm and cool and practised. I was ready to watch him die.

"How did this…" he began to ask. Yet, he already knew. He turned to me, the knowledge hot in his eyes. "You!" he cried in his last bit of strength and passion.

"Yes," I responded, with no measure of regret. "Yes, I did this."

He cursed me, cursed me straight to hell, but that was where he was going, not I. His ranting was weak, and rather pathetic, but the use of all this energy was speeding along his death. His rant ended with a retch, and he barely turned to vomit over the side of his bed. When he was finished, he faced me again and demanded the question they all have demanded, "Why?"

"Justice."

I saw in the way his eyes went wide that he understood completely. The memories of all his unspeakable acts, the ones he thought he got away with, drifted through his mind, and I hoped for the sake of his own soul that he felt regret. "I don't…" he struggled, "I don't deserve to die."

_Lies!_

"You know what you've done, Jugson!" I hiss. "You know your sins. And the wages of sin is death!"

The wages of sin. The years of human life they had taken, years when those victims would have lived and loved, paid for by the lives of those thieves who had stolen them. A life for a life! That was justice!

"I have…" He moaned with pain the act of speaking caused him, and he clutched at his chest. I wondered if his heart is racing, or if it was fighting a slow, painful battle to keep beating. "I have done nothing."

"You lie," I accused. "You know what you did. The whole world knows what you did. You thought you got away with it. But you are wrong. You are a murderer, and now you will pay for what you have done. You will die, and no one will care that you're gone."

The words seemed to pierce deep. In a panic, he continued to clutch at his chest. His breath was coming quickly now. His eyes were wide with fear, and he did what all cowards do when faced with their death. He begged. "Please…_please_…"

The first time I did this, she begged as well, and the pity had nearly overwhelmed my heart. Yet, now I felt no sympathy, not even a hint. I felt only justified.

"Tell me," I implored softly. "Did they beg for life before you killed them?" I leaned close to him even though the smell of him was repulsive, but I wanted him to look into my eyes. I wanted him to see that the last eyes he would ever see bear him no sympathy, just as his eyes had been empty when he had killed them.

He stared into my empty eyes and shook. Perhaps it was death that makes him tremble; perhaps it was his fear at finding no mercy. More than likely, it was both. Either way, he would not lie now. He knew it would do him no good.

He nodded.

"And did you spare them? When they pleaded for their lives…when they begged to see their family one last time…when they told you of the mothers and fathers and brothers and friends and _sisters_," I choked on the last word, and I was not sure why. I took a calming breath and continued, "Did you even hesitate?"

He whimpered. He was a coward who faced his own death and was now forced to look upon his life, and see every dark deed. He was forced to remember my words; no one would miss him now. He would die, alone and without a single tear grief. And all the wickedness of his life that he rejoiced in was now empty and meaningless and terrible.

And this was justice.

"Mercy," he pleaded, his voice scarcely able to be heard. "Mercy."

"Mercy is for God," I said. "I bring only justice."

There was something about the way a pair of eyes, once so wicked, but bright with life,went blank and dim. Something both frightening and intensely fascinating. I watched as his eyes slowly grew dark, as black as his soul that had now left his body. And I knew, Karl Jugson was dead.

I felt relief, even joy, lightening my heart, and I had to press my fingers to lips to withhold a giggle. Justice had been done.

But I could not rejoice yet; there was still much to be done. More justice called, a list awaited, and I would not be free until this obligation was complete.

First, I had to finish here. I used my wand to Levitate his body above the bed, and then changed the filthy sheets. I Vanished them; they could not be found. I cleaned the sick off his body, then closed his sightless eyes, before I laid him back into the bed I had made anew. It I was not for him that I did this, but I had to know that when he was found, no one would suspect that I had played a hand in bringing his just demise.

I considered how people would read this in the newspapers and how they would believe that God or fate or whatever force they believed in, had brought justice. But they had not.

It was I.

When I was done with him, I closed the windows. One stuck and it took force to push it down as far as it would go.

Lastly, I walked over to where I had sat, picked up my quill, and hovered it over my list. A long stroke marks out Karl Jugson's name. Five down; three to go. I was so close now, I could almost taste the sweetness of freedom, like tender kisses upon my lips.

I tucked the book into my cloak pocket and reached for my Remembrall. No sooner had my finger touched it, then it bled red, as though I had pricked my finger before touching it. And as my fingers started to pick it up, I thought, _I wonder if she's proud of me. _I shook the thought away, because I could not fathom what it meant. But for a moment, the Remembrall had become completely clear.

I had remembered, but now I had forgotten again. The Remembrall was as red as it had always been. I thrust it into my pocket, next to the book. Perhaps, whatever it was, it was better to forget.

I exited the room, leaving Jugson dead behind me. I moved with a purpose; the path was set before me.

And Justice beckoned me on.


	2. The RANDOM System

**2. The RANDOM System**

(by Northumbrian)

When the Aurors arrived, I was sitting in an armchair in that tidy little living room.

I was still staring at the corpse lying on the floor in front of me. The corpse was staring too, but it was not seeing.

There were three of them; Aurors always came in threes. I didn't know any of them. Protocol, I suppose, they wouldn't allow me to talk to someone I knew like Terry or Harry.

I knew that they were Aurors because of the long black coats they wore, but I didn't look up. I was too busy looking at the corpse and trying to figure out how I'd ended up here. Was this ending inevitable?

Two of the Aurors were male, the third was female. I didn't need to look up to discover that. Shiny black boots protruded below the coats, two pairs of sturdy and definitely male boots, and a pair of flat-soled and feminine ankle-boots.

"Mr Corner?" she asked. She had a pleasant voice, both soft and deep.

I nodded.

"My name is Pepperell, Trudi Pepperell. I'm an Auror. These are my colleagues, Aurors Webb and Llewellyn. Come with me please. We'll go through into the dining room and I'll take your statement."

I looked up into concerned hazel eyes. My first impression of her was one of elegance, rather than beauty. She was tall, oval-faced and full lipped and, I thought, barely out of her teens. I later discovered that she was twenty-one. Her dark brown hair was cut into a bob and, as she leaned forwards solicitously, the ends of her hair flowed forward along her jaw, framing her face.

I stood and allowed her to lead me from the room. She moved with an easy grace, her back was straight and her strides long; it was easy to follow her. She sat me in a straight-backed dining chair, walked around the table and sat facing me.

"Tell me everything," she said. "Start at the beginning."

"The beginning?" I asked.

I began to laugh; I suspect that I sounded a little crazy. It took me some time to regain control. When I did, my next words certainly didn't help.

"I'm an Unspeakable; I'm researching time, events, and probabilities. There are no beginnings and no endings, Auror Pepperell. Time's arrow speeds unstoppably forward. Events occur chronologically. Sometimes, they are related; sometimes they aren't. Sometimes they are predictable; sometimes they aren't. It takes careful study to determine whether there really is any correlation between cause and effect. There are so many variables to be accounted for, an almost infinite number. If we succeed in making a correlation, then we have a theory. Theories allow predictions."

She looked at me blankly.

"I suppose that's how this started," I realised. "You want to know about relevant past events. Well, I know that there is a thirty-seven percent chance that I would not be here if it weren't for an argument I had with Lavender Brown."

"Auror Brown?" she asked. I nodded. "Then why don't you start there, Michael. Can I call you Michael? You can call me Trudi, if you'd like." She gave me a friendly smile.

"Thanks. What do you know about Dumbledore's Army, Trudi?" I asked.

"When I was Head Girl, Dennis Creevey was Head Boy," she told me. That meant she had heard of us. She and Dennis must have joined the Auror Office together.

"Then you know that we keep in touch. We don't meet regularly. But every year in early October, on a day close to the anniversary of our first meeting, we get together. Not everyone attends, but, usually, most of us are there. I'm here today because of an argument which took place four years ago at a DA reunion." My mind drifted back.

* * *

><p>I was discussing the branching linear theory of time, and its potential applications in Arithmancy with Hermione Granger. She was one of very few people whose Arithmantic knowledge was deep and broad enough to understand my ideas. Also, she was the only person I knew who had actually used a Time-Turner.<p>

Most people thought that a Time-Turner was a time travel device. It wasn't, not really. You couldn't use a Time-Turner to go forward, because the future did not yet exist. And travelling back more than a few hours or days was difficult and dangerous, because you were placing yourself in a location where your own future, the future you already knew, did not exist either. And unless you were very careful, it wouldn't.

Would you want to travel back forty years, if you knew that the only way back was the slow way, and you'd be forty years older when you got there? Add to that the problem that, if you changed something, then the future you finally arrived in would not be the one you left. A Time-Turner allowed you to be in two places at the same time, but not much else. Generally speaking, a Time-Turner was backward-looking and useless.

Hermione was wasted in Magical Law Enforcement. We were discussing time and Time-Turners because of a theory I was working on. I believed that it would be possible to use Arithmancy to combine statistics with abstractions of non-deterministic events to model the stochastic process. Hermione agreed, and she thought that it was an exciting possibility. Ron, unsurprisingly, did not understand.

"Determined statistical abstractions of what?" Ron interrupted our discussion. "You're making it up, Michael."

"It's a method of using Arithmancy to predict the future," Hermione told him patiently. Her explanation was so imprecise as to be almost incorrect, but it satisfied him. Ron, however, had not been the only one listening to our conversation without understanding it.

"Divination is an art, Michael," Lavender Brown told me. "It requires imagination and a mind uncluttered by the mundane. Arithmancy is rigid, structured and bound by rules and laws; it can never be as accurate as a prediction from a true seer."

"Arithmancy is much more likely to give an accurate result than the alcohol-befuddled ramblings of Sybil Trelawney," I told her. Lavender Brown was a silly girl and I really didn't like her much. I argued with her, and Ron and Hermione left us to get on with it.

"True seers talk in riddles and use vague words which could have a multitude of meanings. Sometime afterwards they look back over their predictions and try to fit them to an actual event," I told her.

"Professor Trelawney predicted that I'd be bitten by a werewolf," Lavender said. "Last Christmas she told me 'There will be a major change in your life before the next year ends'."

"That's what I said! A vague and meaningless statement, just like the so called 'psychics' some Muggles believe in," I told her. "If she'd said 'At the full moon in March you'll be bitten by a werewolf,' that would have been a prediction. Last year, you were unable to walk because of your injuries during the battle, Lavender, and almost everyone has a major change in their life every year. It's nothing more than vague guesswork."

"Arithmancy can't do any better," she said.

"It can," I told her.

"Can't!" she said gleefully.

That childish can/can't argument set me on the research path which I was still travelling. After the first year, my research began to consume my life; I spent every waking minute working on the theory. I neglected my friends. My research cost me my relationship with Luna and eventually, it would lead me to that tiny little living room. None of this had been Lavender's fault. Her words on that day set me on this path, but the theory was in my head anyway.

There had been a sixty-three percent chance that, without the argument, I'd be here anyway. There had been a forty percent chance that there would have been no more than four deaths had Gawain Robards listened to me when I first went to his office, and a seventy-six percent chance that there would have been no more than five deaths had I returned with more proof when I had it, instead of trying to solve the case myself.

I blamed myself and Robards, not Lavender, for this mess.

It had taken me two years to create a working hypothesis and to create "the predictor". I built a magical reader and writer. I fed it information from a number of sources, newspaper articles, reports, and even some gossip. The device did what I hoped; it related abstractions of non-deterministic distributions to an ordered mean. I did not name it. My colleagues spotted the acronym in my description. They had called it the RANDOM system, and eventually, I had too.

My early attempts to test the system had been inconclusive. I had needed to test the accuracy of my device, so I decided to look at the Death Eaters, Snatchers, and everyone else who'd fought on the losing side at the battle. I wanted to see whether I could predict the likelihood of any resurgence in the Anti-Muggle-born conspiracy. I collected and collated huge amounts of data, every article about every Death Eater, Snatcher, and Voldemort supporter whether in Azkaban or free. In February this year, more than three years after I'd started work, I had cast my experimental Arithmancy spell over the data system, and I found something very unusual.

I had started simply, by looking for patterns in behaviour which were unlikely to be accounted for by chance. I found one. It wasn't what I expected to find, but my search was wide. Astonished by my discovery, I went straight to the Auror Office, but Harry's desk was empty.

"Is Harry here?" I asked.

"He's taken the afternoon off," I was told.

"Terry?" I tried. The Auror, a guy with a ponytail, shook his head.

"He's in hospital. He was stung by a poisonous tree, but he'll live," he said.

"Susan?" I asked.

"At a crime scene," he said.

"Dennis?"

"If it's important, go and speak to Robards," the man said crossly. "He i_is_/i in charge, after all."

So I went and spoke to Robards. I told him what I'd found and I suggested that he investigate. He looked at me as though I was mad.

"You've told me that four people, all arrested for murder after the battle and all acquitted, have died. The deaths are spaced anywhere between five and eight months apart, and in every case but one the Healers say that the death was from natural causes. Clarissa Crabbe was the wife of one Death Eater and the mother of another. She was an alcoholic who died from liver failure. John Baddeley was a Snatcher who died from a brain haemorrhage." Robards looked down my list in disbelief. He banged his fist on the table and glowered before continuing.

"Bryn Prosser … Bryn Prosser!" he spat the name with venom. "I trained Prosser. He was an Auror! When Thicknesse took over he took the easy option and collaborated. He may have killed, but there wasn't enough evidence to convict him. And this Logan Harper! He was never convicted of anything. And he committed suicide! You come here and tell me what, exactly? That you have cast an untried experimental spell which makes you think that it is likely these deaths are connected? That there is—what?"

"In my opinion, there is an eighty one percent chance that at some time in April, May or June, another acquitted criminal will die, ostensibly of natural causes," I told him.

"The Auror Office has better things to do with its time, Mr Corner. Unless you have solid proof, there is nothing here for us to investigate. Now, get out of my office and don't come back," he told me.

As I left the Auror Office, I decided to find some proof for Mr Robards.

Over the next week, I read everything I could about the death of Clarissa Crabbe, newspaper articles, court transcripts, and the report of her death. There was nothing in any report to indicate that she'd died from anything other than natural causes.

Mrs Crabbe was overweight, in her early fifties, and a heavy drinker. Both her husband and son were at the battle of Hogwarts, and they both died there. She wasn't a Death Eater, but there is little doubt that she sympathised with Voldemort's cause. She was at the battle. Afterwards she was found in the forest, wandless and trying to flee.

A lot of people saw her fighting in the battle and, when the Aurors finally found her wand, they discovered that it had been used to cast a Killing Curse in the final minutes of the battle. She was arrested and tried.

Her defence was that her husband had lost his wand during the battle and that he had taken hers. She claimed that she had hidden in the forest and had not taken part in the final phase of the battle. She said that her husband must have used her wand to kill. The trial lasted weeks, but she was eventually acquitted.

Clarissa Crabbe died on Friday 17 May 2002. Her death was reported by a barmaid in her local pub, a young girl called Sally Smith. According to the reports, Mrs Crabbe had struck up a sort of friendship with this barmaid. The girl had called on Mrs Crabbe, found her dead, and called for assistance.

The Healers examined her body and decided that the cause of death was liver failure brought about by Mrs Crabbe's excessive alcohol consumption. It all seemed perfectly natural. There was nothing at all suspicious about her death. I began to wonder if the RANDOM system had been a complete waste of several years of my life. However, I decided to travel to Kent, to Stone-in-Oxney, to check up on Mrs Crabbe's house and to speak to the girl who found the body.

I found the house, and I found the pub, but when I asked about Sally Smith, the landlord told me that she had quit her job. She'd left immediately after Mrs Crabbe died, telling the landlord that she was moving north with her boyfriend. No one in the pub knew anything about where she'd gone or her boyfriend. No one knew his name; in fact, I was told that she'd never even mentioned a boyfriend. When I checked, I could not find any record of Sally Smith, either.

I went back and spoke to the landlord again. He wasn't happy about me pestering him. He suggested that she might have been working under a false name for some reason, running from her family, possibly. He wondered if she may have been worried that, by reporting the death, she would be found.

It wasn't much, but the mysterious disappearance of Sally Smith was enough to persuade me to continue to investigate. I told my office that I was attempting to determine the accuracy of the system, which I was, and I moved on to look at the second death.

John Baddeley had been a Snatcher and a petty criminal. I had known him. I hadn't realised until I read the files and court reports, but when I saw his photograph I recognised him immediately. He was at Hogwarts, fighting on the other side. I almost saw him kill a student during the battle, but my testimony wasn't enough to convict him.

I had been tortured by the Carrows before the battle; they had used the Cruciatus Curse on me. I still have nightmares about it. I had problems during the battle whenever I heard the Cruciatus Curse being cast, and that had been often.

Terry had discovered my problem just before the cease fire. I had been taken from the front line and put to work making Blood-Replenishing Potion. Madam Pomfrey certainly had needed it. I had been carrying a batch of the potion up to the hospital wing when I had seen Baddeley; he had been duelling a sixth year student. Baddeley had cast the Cruciatus Curse, and I had almost dropped the potions. When I had looked up again, he had been running away. The student had fallen from the balcony and died.

I had testified against Baddeley. I had told the court what I'd seen, but, like a lot of those on the losing side, he'd "lost" his wand. The student had been killed by the fall, and my evidence had not been enough to prove that Baddeley had knocked the student from the balcony by using that Unforgiveable Curse. Baddeley claimed that a troll had pushed the boy. I did not acquit myself well at his trial, and Baddeley had walked free.

The Healers files showed that Baddeley had probably died on 26 October 2002, but his body hadn't been found for several days, not until after he failed to answer his door on Halloween. He had epilepsy and had begun to have seizures over a few months. The Healers report said that he'd died after a massive seizure led to a brain haemorrhage.

I went to Norfolk, but I did not find anything. His house had been sold, and no one in the area knew him. I managed to track down his only relative: his mother. She recognised me, and she threw me out, but not before I managed to get one piece of information from her. He'd been writing to his mother regularly, and he'd told her that he was being visited by a young woman called Olivia Jones. She had been doing research for a book on the Snatcher Squads.

I checked; there was no witch called Olivia Jones, and no publishers knew anything about anyone writing a book about Snatchers. I tracked down several other Snatchers but could not find anyone else who had been interviewed.

It had been another natural death. But once again, there had been a mystery woman involved. So, I moved on to look at the third death.

Bryn Prosser was an Auror, possibly the only Auror, who readily supported Voldemort. The only other Aurors who remained at the Ministry had almost certainly been under the Imperius Curse. Prosser, however, had been a willing accomplice. When the Ministry fell, he worked alongside Umbridge, rounding up Muggle-borns for her "Commission".

It seems that Prosser had enjoyed his job a little too much. His harsh treatment of Muggle-borns during the transportation to and from trials was said to have caused the death of at least two. He had been investigated, but no charges had ever been brought.

In the months after the battle, Prosser received several death threats. He eventually hid himself away on the outskirts of Aberystwyth. He had no friends and was extremely hostile to all visitors. The Healers were uncertain about cause of death. They speculated that he died of scrofungulus, which is not usually fatal. There was one problem; no one could determine how he had been infected. When his body was discovered, the Healers had to call in the Cardiff Law Office to help them break through his protection spells. He'd been dead for days.

I spoke to the Healer, she knew nothing about any mystery woman, and this time there was no sign of any woman. I began to believe that I was chasing a phantom.

The fourth name was that of Logan Harper. He'd been in Luna and Ginny's year and had only just been of age at the battle. He'd stayed and fought, but he'd chosen to fight on the wrong side. He'd been investigated, but there was insufficient evidence against him.

A year after the Battle, he married. Logan Harper had been living a normal life, with a wife and young twins, until he lost his job, and then his mind. He had committed suicide only weeks before Christmas.

I saw no point in visiting his widow. I'd spent three months investigating and had found nothing to prove my theory.

I was about to give up and admit that my system didn't work, but I decided to run the system one final time, to see if I had missed something. It was the 15th of May when I cast my spell on the system. That's when I discovered that, only two days earlier, an acquitted Death Eater called Karl Jugson had died suddenly of heart failure.

* * *

><p>The Muggles believe that there are three islands in the tiny grouping they call St. Kilda. They believe that the largest island in the chain is Hirta, or Hiort, depending upon whether you're speaking English or Scottish Gaelic. There was, in fact a fourth, much larger island, the island which gave the chain its name.<p>

Suntkelda was the westernmost of the Islands of St. Kilda, making it the most westerly island in the Outer Hebrides. It was some twenty-three square miles of heather-clad hills, a short length of white sandy beach, and almost twenty miles of towering granite cliffs. About a dozen wizarding families lived quietly on the island. They lived in small crofts scattered along the sandy western shore, where they fish, and farm, and manufacture woollen products.

Most of the island (sixteen of the twenty-three square miles) was the Fafnerfell Sanctuary. The Sanctuary was inhabited by half a dozen Wardens and a lot more dragons. Suntkelda was the only place in Scotland where Hebridean Blacks still roam wild; it was one of very few free-breeding dragon colonies in the world.

I was within the Sanctuary and was standing on the west side, the windward side, of the summit of Fafnerfell, the highest peak on the island. The views were spectacular. The white crescent of the beach lay almost three miles to the west; beyond it the grey North Atlantic heaved and swelled, flexing its muscles threateningly. Behind me, over the summit and more than a mile away to the east, was the Fafnerbarg. This spectacular granite cliff swept five miles to the north before curving west and south.

Almost all of the island's shore was cliff. At its highest point the Fafnerbarg was a 1400 feet sheer drop into the Atlantic. The cliff descended unevenly until it finally met the western beach from both north and south.

"So, whit can we dae fer ye, Mr Corner?" Andrew Robertson asked me. He was the Senior Dragon-Warden in the Sanctuary, a grizzled and grey-bearded old Scot in tartan robes and a tam-o-shanter. His tartan hat must have been enchanted; there was no other way it could remain on his head in that wild westerly wind. My hair was whipping and flying across my face. Luna used to cut it for me; perhaps it needed attention. We were both shouting to be heard over the wind's howls, as they caught our voices and blew our words towards the cliff.

"Karl Jugson," I said.

He turned, spat over his shoulder and watched the phlegm being whipped away by the wind before turning to face me.

"Now, why would the Department of Mysteries be interested in that nasty wee scunner?" asked Robertson. "The man's deid, and guid riddance tae him."

"His name came up in my research," I said.

"Whit in Merlin's name are ye researching?" Robertson wondered. "Wizards the world would be better off without?"

"Was there anything suspicious about his death?" I asked.

"The owld git didnae complain aboot us, did he?" said Robertson angrily. "He bought himself a wee croft on the edge of the dragon reserve, thought he could hide away from everyone. It's only thirty yards away from oor boundary. But whatever he said to ye, it's simply a coincidence that we decided that the best place to relocate our dungheap was as close as possible to his croft. Dragon dung isnae pleasant, but it willnae kill ye. More's the pity."

"It didn't need to," I told him. "That's not why I'm here. Besides, the Healers say that it was a heart attack."

"I didnae think he had a heart," observed Robertson sourly.

"Did he get any visitors?" I asked.

"How would I know? I always keep as far away as the dung pile as I can. Ask young Fraser Sinclair, he's in charge of the clean up squad. The heap is down there." Robertson pointed downhill to the north. "And that's where Fraser will be, as like as not."

He indicated my broom. "Ye'll have to walk, Mr Corner, and keep a close eye on the sky. The hens are coming into heat and the cocks are beginning to rut. At this time o' the year, anything in the sky is a target for the males; they need te prove themselves."

There were several dragons wheeling about in the sky to the north-east. They whirled and flamed, and even though they were in the distance, I knew not to risk flying.

The dragons appeared to be out over the sea, but I knew from my previous visit that, in that direction, several granite needles thrust up from the ocean. These blackened and guano-encrusted spires formed a line of broken and rotten teeth amongst the foam. The needles were perilous perches for the breeding females; I'd seen them on my previous visit to the island with Luna.

Like men all over the world, the males were busily trying to impress the females. So long as I stayed on the ground, I was no threat to their masculinity. The distant dragons ignored me as I walked across the wind-swept heather.

It took me three-quarters of an hour to walk to the dung heap. I was getting slower the closer I got. I would probably never have reached it; it wasn't easy to walk toward that stomach-churning smell. A wiry young wizard a couple of years younger than me took pity on me. He strolled forward, away from the steaming pile of guano, but he brought the stench with him.

I was now on the leeward side of the island and my initial relief at being out of the wind had turned to longing for its return. A strong wind would at least alleviate the smell.

"Fraser Sinclair?" I asked.

"That's me," he confirmed. "Who wants to know?"

"I'm Michael Corner. I work in the Department of Mysteries," I told him.

"An Unspeakable?" he asked.

I nodded. I was worried that, if I opened my mouth, I would vomit.

"You get used to it, Mr Corner," he assured me. My discomfort at the smell was obvious.

"Call me Michael," I gasped. I had been holding my breath, I realised.

"At least, the old guys tell me that you get used to it, Michael," he admitted. "I haven't, not yet. But it's valuable stuff, dragon dung, much too valuable to Vanish."

"Can we move away, Fraser?" I begged.

"Too late for that; the smell clings to you for days."

"Karl Jugson," I said. I was using as few words as possible.

"He lived there." He pointed to a tiny stone cottage on the other side of the low stone wall. "He moved here not long after his trial. The court delivered a verdict of 'not proven', you know."

I simply nodded. Every time I opened my mouth, the cloying stench seemed to coat my tongue. The less I spoke, the less of the stink I'd have to swallow.

"It's a peculiarly Scottish verdict. Mr Robertson says that, in law, it means exactly the same as 'not guilty', but the Scots all know that it really means 'we know you did it, but there isn't enough evidence'," Fraser told me.

I nodded again.

"We moved the dung heap here not long after Jugson moved in. He complained, of course, but no one listened." Fraser was looking across at the building as he spoke. "That's odd," he said. "There's a window open."

"Odd?" I enquired.

"Jugson kept them closed, sealed. It was the only way he could keep the smell out. And even that didn't work; it seeps everywhere."

"Perhaps there's someone in there," I suggested.

We exchanged a worried glance, and we both clambered over the wall and walked cautiously towards the cottage. I drew my wand, and so did Fraser. He moved around the side of the building, towards the door. I cautiously peered through the partly opened window. The room was a bedroom. It appeared to be empty, and my spell confirmed that it was. I struggled, but finally succeeded in pulling up the sash window and I quietly clambered inside. The bed clothes were clean; the room was tidy. The table beside the bed was empty and the writing desk was completely uncluttered. There was nothing in the room.

I checked the window through which I'd climbed. The metal catch had been painted over, but it had been forced open. There were scrapings of paint on the catch, and when I checked the frame it was the same. It was obvious that the window had not been opened for months. Someone had made the effort to open it. I wondered why. Was this the killer's means of escape?

I heard movement behind me and whirled around, wand raised. Fraser Sinclair lifted his hands in surrender.

"The door was open," he said hastily. "No one locks their doors on this island, Michael. As you know it's impossible to Apparate into the Reserve; you must arrive at the harbour and walk everywhere. No one here has anything worth stealing, and everyone knows everyone else."

"So a stranger would have been noticed?" I asked.

"Yes. Only the crofters and the Wardens live on the island. We get the volunteers, of course, but most of them are here for only a few months, and then they leave." I must have looked puzzled, because he explained more. "A lot of people are fascinated by dragons, Michael. I am, and I was very lucky to get a job here."

_You collect dragon-dung for a living, and you think you're lucky_, I thought. I said nothing and hoped that my face wasn't betraying my opinions.

"We get a lot of volunteers. People come for weeks, or months even, to work with the dragons. It can be dangerous, but they are really magnificent creatures." Fraser was a thin and fresh-faced young man, but I suddenly saw a wild glimpse of Professor Hagrid in his expression.

"So, there could have been someone else in the house when he died, possibly one of the volunteers," I said.

"I could have been in this house. Anyone could've," he said. "No one would know."

"Were you?" I asked.

He shook his head. "This is the first time I've been over the wall. The Wardens' and Volunteers' Accommodation is miles away. We live in three caves on the cliff edge. We have excellent views of the dragons on the needles, unlike here."

"How many volunteers are there on the island?" I asked.

"Only two," he said. He sounded sad. "There was a third, but she left suddenly."

"When?" I asked.

"Not long ago, around the time that Jugson died, I suppose. She was called Toni, Toni Alden. She was nice, but rather forgetful, which isn't a good thing around dragons."

"How old was she?" I tried to hide my excitement.

"About our age, but why do you want to know?" he asked suspiciously.

"It's all to do with my research," I said. I had a sudden brainwave. "Some women seem to be drawn to inappropriate men, killers, narcissists, criminals, men who will lie and cheat and maybe even abuse them, verbally or physically. That's what I'm researching. I intended to speak to Jugson about attempted contacts. He's dead, so I thought, possibly, this girl…"

"Toni was forgetful, but she was kind and caring." Fraser spoke so forcefully that I wondered if he had feelings for the girl. "She was always making us gifts, cakes and pies. She even hand-made some scented candles for us, for the accommodation block. She did it to reduce the smell from the dragons."

"Did they work?" I asked, trying to pacify him.

"Yes," he said staunchly. "She was a perfectionist about them. I once tried to steal one from of a box she was carrying; she made me put it back. She said that they weren't good enough and that she was going to throw them out."

"Sinclair, where in Merlin's name are you?" a magically amplified voice boomed from outside. It was Robertson. Fraser Sinclair gave me a worried look and hurried from the cottage.

Once I was alone, I took the opportunity to fully search the place. There were several things which struck me as odd. Most of the house was dirty; in fact, only the bedroom was tidy. It seemed that, as in the bedroom, every window in the place had been painted shut, and every window had also recently been opened. All of them, apart from the bedroom window, had been closed again, so I re-examined it carefully. The frame was warped. It sprang out when opened. It stuck easily and remained open by a couple of inches. By pushing hard, I was strong enough to force it down but closing it was not easy. Whoever had tried to close it, I assumed, was not as strong as me.

Whoever had opened the windows had let in the stench of the dung heap. The place would almost certainly have smelled anyway, unless he was burning scented candles, I thought. My careful search revealed spots of wax in the kitchen and living room. There were no candles in the house, but I was certain that there had been, and recently, since the wax was on top of the dust.

My search over, I decided that it was time to leave. I would check on this "Toni Alden" and try to find out if any of the other Death Eaters had been using scented candles.

I had a possible method. It seemed unlikely, but could I be dealing with death by poison gas? Was that possible?

* * *

><p>It took days for me to get rid of the smell, so I put off my visits to the other sites. Instead, my first enquiries were into Toni Alden. She proved to be as ephemeral as both Sally Smith and Olivia Jones. She simply did not exist. Sally was a bespectacled blonde, Toni a brunette, and I had no description of Olivia Jones.<p>

I then tried to check out my candle theory, but there was no evidence of any candles being associated with the other deaths. Another promising theory had come to nothing.

I wondered if she'd been using Polyjuice Potion, but I dismissed that idea almost immediately. The effects of the potion lasted only for about an hour. The fake Professor Moody managed to escape detection only because he took regular drinks from his hip flask. Continually using Polyjuice Potion was, I thought, very unlikely. She would have needed gallons of the stuff.

My next move was to visit the family of Logan Harper. At that point, although I was almost convinced of the existence of the mystery girl, I had only confirmed her presence at three out of the five deaths. I could not even prove that she was the same person.

Somehow, all of the physical evidence against Harper had been lost. Witnesses placed him close to the murder, but that was not enough. He was another who had been acquitted because of insufficient proof. Although, many speculated that the real reason for his acquittal was his father's constant lobbying. Harper's father was a member of the Wizengamot. Logan Harper had resumed a normal life. He had married at twenty and was a father of twins a year later.

People were marrying, making new lives for themselves. Parvati was married, so were Ron and Hermione, Harry and Ginny, and Neville and Hannah. George and Angelina had a new baby and Ginny was pregnant. My old friend Terry would be marrying Fenella in a few months. Time's arrow continued relentlessly forward, and people were changing. I had been studying time for so long that I almost felt outside of these mundane events. Time moved on, and I simply observed it happening.

Harper's widow, Delilah, was one of the Smith girls. She was a Pureblood like Harper himself, and a cousin of Zacharius. I tried not to let that knowledge colour my judgement of the girl. After all, I knew that Ernie Macmillan had married a Smith too; perhaps Ernie's wife was Delilah's sister. But the Smiths are the largest of the surviving Pureblood families, so perhaps not.

Mrs Harper and her twins were still living with her parents-in-law in Harper Hall, near Quothquan in Lanarkshire. The Harpers were an old and wealthy family.

I had scrupulously studied the files and press cuttings before I went to speak to Delilah Harper. As I walked up the long gravel drive, I wondered what to tell her. Starting with "I think that your husband may have been killed" didn't seem right to me. I had written to her and made an appointment. All I had said in my letter was that I was investigating unexplained deaths; perhaps that would be enough.

Harper Hall was a large, ivy-clad stone manor house. I was taken to the west tower by a house elf named Skerry. The elf escorted me to the door of the study, where Mrs Harper was waiting.

Delilah Harper was a blonde woman with an upturned nose. She was as tall and slim as Susan Bones and seemed to be constantly close to tears.

The twins had been something of a handful for Mrs Harper, so she and her husband had hired a nanny, a young woman named Betty Williams, to help look after the children. According to Mrs Harper, Miss Williams had been wonderful. She'd been very good with the twins, and after her husband had become ill, Betty had helped to nurse him.

Mrs Harper told me that her husband had been ill for some time before his death. He'd been fired from his job because of his incompetence and had become erratic in his behaviour. Mrs Harper thought that he'd been behaving strangely before he lost his job, and that his sacking had been the final straw.

I managed to ascertain that Harper's erratic behaviour had begun not long after Betty Williams had arrived. His illness had begun some time later. After he'd lost his job, he'd begun to have severe stomach pains. His stomach had become very sensitive to touch. The Healers had been unable to find anything wrong with him and had advised that the symptoms may simply be a physical manifestation of the stress he was under. Towards the end, he had begun to hallucinate. Mrs Harper was convinced that he'd been hallucinating when he leapt from a top floor window of the tower less than two weeks before Christmas.

"Logan was a good man, Mr Corner," his widow told me tearfully. "He was kind and generous and hard-working, but in those last few months, he changed. He became suspicious and obsessive. He looked haggard and haunted, but the Healers could find nothing wrong with him."

I checked my notes. "Your husband's death was officially recorded as suicide due to psychosis, caused by the termination of his job and the stress of a young family."

"That's ridiculous; you know that it is, Mr Corner," said Mrs Harper. "Otherwise, you would not be looking in to it. Why are you investigating? What do you believe happened?"

"Several people who fought alongside Voldemort have died," I told her.

"Lies! Liar!" she screamed. "Logan wasn't there; he wasn't involved." She was pale and angry and crying and a little crazed. "He told me; he promised me. He was innocent!"

"The guilty usually lie, Mrs Harper. They do it to save themselves," I told her. My words transformed her into a spitting, shrieking madwoman.

"I was his wife!" she shrieked. "He loved me; he wouldn't lie to me."

"He might," I suggested. She launched herself at me and I was forced to cast a Shield Charm to keep her away from me.

"Skerry," Mrs Harper shouted. The house elf appeared immediately. "Get rid of this man, and never, ever let him back in this house."

The house elf touched me, and I found myself outside the gates of Harper Hall. I took a step forward, but the gates growled and snarled at me, so I left.

I checked up on Betty Williams. She was another illusion, a non-person. Like all of the others, Betty Williams did not exist.

I was rather shaken by my experience, but, now more than ever, I was determined to discover what was going on. That was when I realised that my system was capable of more accurate predictions. If I could add more information, perhaps I could predict the name of the next victim.

I spent several days adding all of the additional data I'd discovered to the system. It was now time for me to see whether I could use the RANDOM system to make a useful prediction, not simply point out anomalies. I tried to determine the name of the next victim. It took only moments.

I received three names and a note of caution: Alecto Carrow, 43%; Lucius Malfoy, 31%; Patrick Mulciber, 24%; Person Unknown, 2%.

The woman who had tortured me, Alecto Carrow, was on the list. She was free and a possible victim. I would have to face her, but not yet. I decided to check the others first.

After the battle, Lucius Malfoy had been charged with only minor crimes. He'd done a deal to save himself and had handed over everyone else. He'd been sentenced to five years, but he'd lasted only days in Azkaban before being beaten so badly that he now walked with a stick. Serving his sentence in the same place as people he'd put in there for life was not an option, so he'd then been placed under House arrest in Malfoy Manor. He was still there and would be easy to contact.

Patrick Mulciber had tried to 'do a Malfoy' too. He'd been involved with the Snatcher Squads and had turned in dozens of Snatchers, blaming them for crimes others said he'd committed himself. His sentence, too, had been reduced and, like Malfoy, he'd been placed under house arrest. Only the Aurors knew where he was, but I'd probably be able to find out.

I still had no evidence, but what I was investigating could not be a coincidence. People were dying, and I was the only one who could stop it.


	3. The Girl Next Door

**3. The Girl Next Door**

(by C_A_Campbell)

"And here we have the bedroom!" the tubby wizard boasted, as he swung his arm in such an exuberant gesture that his crooked toupee nearly tumbled completely off his bald head. "Isn't it lovely?"

I blinked at the box of a room that barely had space for the bed and dresser. Peeling wallpaper hung on the walls, and dusty hardwood floors bore the scars of frequently moved furniture. "Yes," I agreed after a long moment. "Lovely."

_Lies_

I launched back the accusation that hammered against my conscience. A little kindness had never hurt anyone, and this harmless lie was surely better than a terrible truth. Besides, I had not told the landlord who had granted me the tour of the flat that it mattered little what the flat looked like. It could have had no roof and no more than a porcelain pot under the bed for a toilet and I still would take it. It was not what was within this place that I cared for, but what was next door.

The landlord led me from the bedroom back into the main room, a room that was no more promising then the bedroom. A single mustard-coloured armchair, a cramped kitchen in one corner, and a few bare and dusty shelves was all it had to offer. But still, I allowed the man to continue to praise the flat's charm. He was just desperate to fill the place, and I felt sympathy for him. He had not asked for a monster to chase away his tenants, but one had come anyway.

Almost without realizing what I was doing, I wandered over the squeaky wood floor. I reached out and trailed my fingers along the cool walls, before pressing my palm flat against it. She was there, the monster who had been granted mercy. I could nearly feel the confirmation of it in my hand; the walls seemed to vibrate as though sobbing of the horror they were forced to contain.

It had not been hard to find Alecto Carrow. The wizarding laws might have been forgiving, but the wizards within those laws were not. Within the wizarding community, people followed Carrow's doings warily, as though afraid if they did not know precisely where she was, they would awake to find her wand at their throats. It had only been a matter of asking the right people to discover that Carrow, short on money and options, had moved into a flat in Leeds. The fourth floor in the Muggle building, a riverside warehouse converted into flats, was owned by a wizard who let the handful of rooms to witches and wizards. Shortly after Carrow had arrived, the room next to hers had come up for rent and remained empty, much to the landlord's dismay. That was, until I had come knocking.

I could feel my pulse start to race, pounding against my wrist, my neck, my temples. It was about to begin again. Every time I had watched this woman inflict pain with a mere twirl of her wand, every time I had covered my ears with my hands to muffle the screams, every time I had dreamed of one day bringing justice, had led me to this time and place. The time when Alecto Carrow would die.

"Miss," the landlord began hesitantly, taking a step closer to me and holding his hand out, but not touching me. "Miss, are you all right?"

"Perfect." I managed a sincere smile; it wasn't so hard today.

"Right." His own enthusiastic smile spread across his face as he misinterpreted my joy. "And forgive me…what did you say your name was?"

I blinked at him in confusion. My name. Merlin, I'd forgotten again. Discretely, I uncurled my fist to read the ink I had carefully sketched on my palm. i_Your name is Dawn Edwards._/i

"Edwards," I said. "Dawn Edwards."

_Lies!_

It wasn't my name, not really. But then, I had lived under false names for so long, exchanging identity for identity, that I could scarcely remember what my own name was. It was little more than a faint knowledge at the back of my mind, like the face of a stranger that I could only recall if I thought really hard. But I did not think hard; there was a reason I had chosen to forget. I did not remember what it was, but I feared knowing that too.

"So…" the landlord drew out the word, and by the time I realized it was an attempt to get me to speak, he was already continuing, "Do you think you will take the flat?"

"It depends." Yes, I already knew I would, but first, I had to ask…to be absolutely certain. "Does Alecto Carrow really live next door?"

The landlord sucked in a breath as though I had struck him, then he let out a defeated sigh. His shoulders dropped and I knew this was the reason no one had taken the flat. It wasn't the chipped paint, or the squeaky floors, or the cramped kitchen; it was the monster that lived next door.

"Yes, it's true," he admitted honestly. "I regret letting her move in. If I'd known it would cost me tenants, I wouldn't have. Two more are threatening to leave, because of her. But rent is rent; I couldn't really refuse her. "

_Yes,_ I thought, _you could have._

"Besides," he nodded firmly, raising his chin determinedly, "they say she's truly repentant."

I ran my finger through the dust on a shelf on the wall, absently drawing a smiling face, like the images I used to doodle on my Transfiguration homework when I had difficulty focusing. I ran my palm over them to wipe away the happiness when I realized how unbefitting it was to the conversation.

"So they say," I agreed at last. "And everyone deserves a second chance, right?"

I watched him carefully, waiting, wondering. He pursed his lips, contemplating for a moment, then nodded uncertainly. "Yes, yes, I suppose."

I narrowed my eyes. There were so many unjust people in the world, so many who gladly give murderers second chances without thinking of the graves of those who would never get a second chance to live. _So unjust._

But I did not berate him. Instead, more determined than ever, I said, "I'll take the flat."

_Because she deserves…she deserves to die._

* * *

><p>There was one small flaw in the plan: Dawn Edwards did not exist.<p>

It wasn't hard for the landlord to discover this. Dawn's references were fake; her credentials a lie, but it took little more than a Confundus Charm and a five months advance rent to convince him to believe that I was who I claimed to be. After all, he let a murderer be his tenant; why say no to a girl who merely didn't exist.

So a few days later, I moved my two small suitcases of things into the box of a flat late in the night, carefully unpacked my things – lovingly setting the journal, the Remembrall, a phial, and my wand beside the bed. Only then did I make the bed and then crawl onto the sheets that still smelled of the last bed I had laid upon, bringing the memories of dragons and Jugson and a kind young man name Fraser who had smiled at me too often. I would soon forget him.

I rolled onto my side, curling into a comfortable ball, and stared at the wall only inches from my face. It was the only thing that separated me from my next goal: a paper-thin wall. I wondered how it would happen for Carrow; it was always a little different. Would her liver fail like Crabbe's? Would her heart cease to beat like Jugson's? Would she slowly go mad until she took her own life like Harper? And what would her eyes look like when the light slowly went from her, when she realized that justice had finally come? And I wondered what it would feel like when she died. Would it hurt? Or would it be like falling asleep and waking in a nightmare where all that you loved and lived for was gone?

These were my thoughts, the thoughts of a slave to justice, as I drifted into dreams.

I only ever had one dream, but it was many dreams rolled into one. Scattered images jumbled together, shuffled so that they never appeared in the same order. Screams of the dying. Flashes of green light. Bodies writhing in pain. Sobs shaking the bodies of the weak. Hands reaching out to save, but coming up short. A voice—sometimes I thought it was my own—crying out in vain. Evil laughter. And running, running, running, but never fast enough. And then there – there was the girl with the wild curls and the fierce blue eyes. She flickered just within sight and I reached out to her, but she was always just out of reach, haunting me, calling my name-imy/i name. And then she disappeared behind the blood. I screamed for her, as a voice, so like my own but infinitely more frightening, demanded justice. And this time, I knew justice had come for me.

I always awoke with a scream. Only one made it past my mouth, before I clamped my hand against my lips and muffled the sounds. Screams turned to sobs that wracked my entire body and my throat was constricted by invisible hands, trying to suffocate me. At last, I managed to cry out one word, a name, i_her_/i name. I cried it, begged it, again and again, but still she did not come. And I knew why.

My hands flung away from me, searching for a hand hold to keep myself from sinking under the sea of pain, but all I seized was the cool ball of the Remembrall. It did not burn brightly in the darkness; it was completely clear. Because I remembered; I remembered and I did not want to!

I stumbled from the bed and fell as my knees gave way. I searched desperately around the ground and I heard the object roll, porcelain against wood. My fingers grasped the phial, tugged up the stopper, and pressed the potion to my lips, drinking deeply. And then I curled into a ball on the floor, waiting for the potion to work, waiting to forget. Until then, I murmured over and over again, "I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry. I deserve…I deserve…"

Darkness and confusion flooded over my brain like healing waters. My tears stopped, my pain ended, and I could only lay in utter confusion upon the scarred hard wood floors. Slowly, I sat up and took around my surroundings. Where was I? How had I got here? And what…what was my name?

I remembered nothing. I clutched a Remembrall in one hand, oozing bright red in its depths, and in my other hand was a phial. Next to me, there lay a black leather journal with words etched in the front. "If you forget, read me."

So I did. Page after page, word after word, told me everything I needed to know. What I had done, what I planned to do, and why it was so very necessary that I do it. When I arose, I moved with determination, my mission clear in my mind: to bring justice to Alecto Carrow.

So I entered the cramped kitchen of my flat and baked biscuits.

* * *

><p>Later on that afternoon, after I had oh-so-carefully prepared my method and ensured that the tray of chocolate chip cookies in my hands held the power to begin the process, I stood in the hallway before Carrow's door. I stared at the door, at the tarnished and peeling golden numbers upon it. I sucked in a deep breath and lifted my fist, but before I could hammer it into the door, the lift door dinged open.<p>

I instinctively jumped back, as though afraid of being caught. But no one would ever suspect me—the girl with the tray of biscuits. The idea was too absurd: vengeance by biscuits. The irony ensured that no one would ever suppose what my true motive was; that is what made my method so perfect.

Still, I glanced over my shoulder as a long-legged woman stepped from the lift. The landlord had placed Charms upon this floor so that any Muggle who accidently stumbled upon the fourth level would see only the ruin of an empty floor in the midst of renovation. So, the dark-haired woman who stepped forth must have been a witch, despite the Muggle clothing that hugged her statuesque frame. With a black skirt just above the knee and a silky green blouse, the witch looked as though she had just stepped from important business meeting, but the strappy, matching heels that dangled in her fingers told another story. She was impatiently tugging at her up-do, pins caught between her teeth. She was cursing and ranting under her breath, clearly irked, "Not the right shade of pink, Merlin's multi-coloured trousers! She wouldn't know cerise from rose if it bit her in the…"

She stopped abruptly as she realized she wasn't alone in the hall. When she turned her head to gaze at me, she didn't even blush at realising I had witnessed her less than poised demeanour. She merely arched her perfect eyebrows and spat her pins into her hand, before drawing herself upright. Even in the shoeless state, with her hair half let down, the woman was beautiful. I smoothed out my thin t-shirt with the hand that wasn't balancing the biscuits, feeling rather bland and unimpressive next to her.

It had been a long time—before I had come into the business of justice—since I had even momentarily contemplated my appearance. I had a notion that I had once been thought pretty, but now I reckoned I was rather plain, especially as the woman's chocolaty brown eyes swept over me as though judging me.

It wasn't nice to judge; only justice should do that.

"You're the new girl," the woman said, after a moment that felt longer than it probably was.

I nodded.

"I'm Lauren Cauldwell." She stuck out her hand, and I gingerly shook her long, manicured fingers, before swiftly letting go.

"Dawn Edwards," I whispered softly.

"Pleasure," she said. Her tone was brisk and confident, as though she had no hesitation or forethought for the words that poured out her lips. "Though I do think you're rather bonkers for moving next door to Carrow. No one is really thrilled with her presence here. She does tend to stay in her flat, which I suppose, is something to be grateful for."

Not sure what this Lauren desired me to say, I only bobbed my head politely and put on a small smile, while earnestly wishing she would leave so I could get on with my work. The biscuits were growing cold, and though that would not affect the harmful ingredient I had stirred into the batter, they were quickly losing the effect that would tempt Carrow to take the first of the fatal bites.

But Lauren didn't seem to be ready to leave anytime soon, as she began tugging at her hair once more. "Where are you from?"

I said the first place that came to mind. "Surrey, Woking." _Lies._

"I just helped plan a wedding there," she babbled. "That's what I do: a wedding coordinator. It sounds more glamorous than it actually is, trust me."

"I doubt that," I said kindly.

"You shouldn't. But I do love it. All the drama gets into my blood, I think. What do you do?"

_Bring justice_. "I'm between jobs at the moment. I trained as a Healer, though." I waited for the accusation of lies to come, but they didn't. A small spark in my forgetful mind told me I'd told the truth for a change.

"Brill." She shook her head, letting her hair finally fall free. It cascaded in waves down her shoulders, and I twirled a piece of my limp blond hair around my fingertip. For the first time since she began the conversation, she fully turned her attention back to me. Her eyes landed upon the tray in my hands, then shifted upward to the door I stood before. Then her face lost its carefree air and turned dark, very dark. "Don't tell me you're actually giving biscuits to Carrow."

I saw no sense in lying so I replied honestly, "I am."

Her lipstick-stained lips fell open in mixture of surprise and disgust. "You're having me on, right?" When I didn't respond, she shook her head and scoffed, "Are you mental? You're giving _biscuits_ to someone who just got out of Azkaban."

I hesitated, not quite sure what to say to her for a long moment, and then, like from an age ago, a familiar phrase came to my memory. "Everyone deserves a bit of kindness." _Lies!_ I quickly amended, _Well,_ almost _everyone_. Carrow was one of the few exceptions, as were the others on my lists. But the biscuits were not a touch of kindness; they were a touch of death.

Lauren laughed as though it was the most absurd thing she'd heard. "But no one is that kind!"

I only blinked at her, and she stared back in a way that made me feel like a strange creature behind glass at some Muggle zoo.

"My i_God_/i," she breathed, something akin to admiration and disbelief creeping into her tone. "It must be exhausting to so good."

"Not really." I shrugged my shoulders modestly.

She continued to stare at me, slack-jawed and wide-eyed, before she coughed. "Well, good luck to you."

"Thank you," I replied, before I considered that the words might not have been meant as a compliment.

She only shook her head and padded down the hall, mumbling under her breath, "Biscuits for Carrow. I mean, my _God_."

I waited until her apartment door slammed behind her, then breathed a sigh of relief. I turned expectantly towards the door, feeling my heart pick up a notch, before I lifted my hand and knocked. There was silence for a long moment, so quiet I could hear my heart hammering against my eardrums. I knocked again, waited, listened to the stillness, raised my hand again. Then footsteps came from within, pumps muffled against carpet. Alecto Carrow, answering the call of justice.

The door opened, but only just. A chain at the top jerked tight, and I peered through the crack that had been opened. It had been a long time since I had seen Alecto Carrow. Somewhere in my foggy brain, there was a fuzzy image of who she had been: a wheezy laugh, hair and eyes as black as her heart, and a short stature that somehow made her no less terrifying to the girl I had been back then. But the sight of her now was nothing compared to what she had been. Her dark hair was streaked with grey, too much for it to have just been caused by age alone, but by the horrors of Azkaban. She was stooped, making her shorter than she ever had been, and when she breathed, she wheezed softly—the consequence of a cold and damp cell. Only her eyes remained unaltered; they were still as black and heartless as ever. But the biggest thing that had changed was: I was not afraid of her now. She was a woman who brought memories of peoples screams, and yet, my knees did not shudder as they once did. But now, it would be her who would scream for mercy, and that knowledge made me feel powerful.

I did not fear her anymore.

For a while, she glared at me through the narrow opening. I waited to see if she might recognize me, but I had only been one face among many and it had been so long ago, I scarcely remembered.

At last, she barked, "Who are you?"

"Dawn Edwards, ma'am," I said, my voice gentle and sweet. I forced a small smile onto my face so she would not read my disgust.

"Who?"

"I just moved in next door."

Her dark gaze swept over me once again, suspicious, cold. I swallowed, wondering if this would really be as easy as I had thought.

"What do you want?" she demanded nastily.

I held out the plate of biscuits before me so she could see the alluring, round cookies, soft and filled with perfect chocolate chips. "I baked you biscuits."

She wrinkled up her nose as though the sweet smell offended her. "Why would you do an awful thing like that?"

My smile wavered, but I forced my lips to stop their trembling and pasted it back on my face. "I just thought it would be a nice, neighbourly thing to do. I hope you like chocolate chip cookies."

"Is this some sort of joke?"

I shook my head, my blond locks swinging in and out of line of sight. I brushed my hair aside so I could see her more clearly. She was staring from my face to the plate and back to my face. I tried a smile I hoped was encouraging, but it did not get the reaction I had hoped. She bared her teeth, growled, and slammed the door.

The blood ran from my cheeks and my heart went still in my chest, but I dared to try once more. Bravely, I rapped my knuckles against the door. "Miss Carrow."

In a ruckus of jangling chains and creaking hinges, the door flung open. I stumbled backwards to keep from being attacked by it as it swung out and collided with the opposing wall. Carrow stood in the doorway, her frame shaking with rage, her face contorted in a demonic expression of fury, her eyes filled with hellfire. Her fist was the only part of her that was steady; it was held outward, as though grasping a wand. But she had no wand; it had been confiscated from her until she had proved herself fit to regain possession. Still, the effect was terrifying and the childish fear I used to have returned with a vengeance. I leapt back against the wall with a yelp.

"You think I'm going to fall for this! This act of kindness! No one is kind; not to me!"

She surged forward, and I cried out in alarm, but she only yanked the biscuits away. She grasped a handful and smashed them in her mighty fists. Crumbs and chocolate chips smeared her hand and then rained to the floor at my feet. She was so near now I could smell the stench of her hot breath. I trembled against the wall, even as one of my hands stretched into the pocket of my trousers, seeking my wand. I did not pull it out; something cautioned me not to appear threatening. I would never gain her trust then, and it would all, all be ruined.

"Get out of here, girl!" she screamed. "Get!"

So I ran, even as her screams raged after me. I fumbled with my doorknob to my flat, stumbled within, and slammed the door close, just as there was a crash as my plate—aimed for my head—shattered against the door. With shaking hands, I bolted the door and did up the chain, but no footsteps made their way toward the door.

I sank to my knees on the coarse carpet, still shaking, and stifled my sobs into my hands. It was not her viciousness or the fear that caused me to cry; it was knowing that my attempt had failed. I should have known it would not be so easy, but I had hoped. And if I did not gain her trust, I would never be free.

I forced myself to calm down. It was but one failed attempt, one little flaw in the plan. I would not give up.

_Justice always finds a way._

* * *

><p>The mission consumed me like a blazing fire, as hot as the day it was first lit. And yet for all my passion, determination, and hard work, I made no progress. Every attempt to gain Carrow's trust—every act of kindness and every offer of friendship—was met with a door slammed in my face, something propelled at my head, curses burned into my ears, or a scream of "Leave me the alone!"<p>

And I wish I could have, but Justice was a merciless master and it drove me to continue.

I remembered, or rather read in my journal, that Prosser had been suspicious like Carrow too, but I had managed to find a way. I briefly considered using the method that had worked with him, but it was too risky. Too many innocent people might be hurt, and that certainly would _not_ do.

I tried other tested methods: candles, like Jugson. I left them on her doorstep, but the next day, I found them in the hallway, broken in half. Again and again, I tried, but nothing ever work. I went through so many resources that I was forced to leave one weekend and replenish my supplies. I told Lauren Cauldwell, who was the only one who seemed to have any interest in me—probably because, as she said, the drama was in her blood—that I was going to visit my parents for the weekends.

_Lies._

When I returned, I attempted to try one last time to reach Carrow. This marked three weeks since I had first come, since I had first failed, and I knew my chances were waning. Armed with my wits and a well-rehearsed apology, I knocked on her door. The last few times she hadn't even bothered to answer, but this time, the door yanked open almost immediately, as though she had been waiting for me.

"What do you want?" she shrieked. She was as wild-eyed as ever, but there was less anger in her voice. This time, she merely seemed confused.

My speech disappeared from my mind. "I wanted to…well…"

"Well, what?" she snapped impatiently. "Give me a gift. Ask me over for tea. Attempt to brighten my day with a joke, or something nice like that?"

I nodded. "Something like that."

"But why?"she demanded. "Why are being so bloody…so bloody…" She searched for a right word, found it, and spat it out as though it was something toxic, "_nice_ to me."

Realizing this was my chance, I said the words I had explained to Lauren the few weeks ago, the words that were i_almost_/i always true. "Because everyone deserves kindness."

Carrow stared, her mouth agape, and then she snapped her mouth closed and snorted derisively. "No i_one_/i is that kind, sweetheart. Not even you. So do yourself a favour and don't come back; hate to have something happen to that pretty face of yours." With a cold sneer, she whirled about and slammed the door with such force the walls vibrated in protest.

I stumbled back to my apartment, feeling the weight of my failure press down upon me. The chances of gaining Carrow's trust were narrowing by the second, and if I failed, if justice was never delivered, if my list was not complete, I would never be free. And that idea nearly made me cry.

Perhaps that was why, when Lauren came hammering on the door, I didn't pretend like I wasn't there, like I had once. I opened the door and eyed her curiously.

"Fancy a drink?" she asked without waiting for me to greet her properly.

I blinked.

"Now, don't look at me like I asked you to go on a date with me." She rolled her brown eyes. "You're pretty, sweetheart, but I'm not into your…gender." She laughed at her own joke without even waiting to see if I would be joining her, which I didn't.

"Actually, I don't feel like going out," I said, as politely as I could.

"Which is brill!" Before she said anymore, she seized my arm, yanked me from my flat, and yanked me down to her own door. "Because I don't feel like going out either."

Before I could recall ever giving assent, I found myself seated on one of her chairs, a glass of firewhiskey in my hand as she lounged on her sofa, dressed in silken pyjamas as though she had planned this all. She probably had and it seemed to matter little that I wasn't exactly a willing participant. It wasn't that I didn't like Lauren; I thought she was all right. But I had made a point not to get attached anywhere. Becoming a new person every few months meant you couldn't leave behind many roots. Lauren, however, wasn't giving me much option.

"Thanks for this," Lauren said as she nursed her own glass of firewhiskey. "I had a wretched day and I don't like drinking alone."

She took a great gulp of her drink and began to explain the latest drama in her life. Apparently, the ex-boyfriend she was still madly in love had announced his engagement to an absolute cow—Lauren's words, not mine—who had wanted Lauren to plan the wedding. So, Lauren was being tortured trying to make 'the most romantic wedding ever' when she was crazily in love with the groom. It was such a ridiculous romantic cliché that I had to work up an effort to be sympathetic. If I didn't sound sincere, she likely didn't notice. Mostly, I only twirled my drink in my hand and sighed sympathetically. I didn't drink a drop of the alcohol. When someone had as many secrets as I did, and as bad a memory, it wasn't good to add alcohol and risk spilling all I knew. But Lauren didn't notice that either; she noticed little but herself and I suspected that she enjoyed being at the centre of any drama.

After two more glasses, Lauren finally brought her story to a slurring end. Hiccupping and brushing away a few tears, she turned her gaze upon me. "So how's things on your end?"

"Well…" _I am attempting to bring Justice to three more people, and the one I'm on right now refuses to ingest, inhale, or touch the method that would lead to her death._ "Things are rather boring on my end."

She snorted, as though that was hard to believe. She drained the last drop of her glass, then twirled her arm about to gesture at me, but with gestures so big, it was as though her arm were conducting an orchestra. "You…I don't understand you. Been here three weeks and you barely leave your apartment. No visitors. No job. You're an enigma."

No, Lauren was an enigma. Gorgeous and confident, she could have had the world on a platter, but she was wallowing in her apartment, telling personal stories to a girl she barely knew. I was simply a girl who didn't exist and had not for a very long time. She was the enigma; I was inconsequential.

"And then there's that whole Carrow thing," Lauren ranted. "Always going out of your way to do her kindness, no matter how horrible she is to you. Are you trying to redeem yourself for some horrible deed? You haven't kill anybody, have you?"

"No," I said suddenly, passionately, too much so. "Why would you say something like that?"

I knew I had been responsible for the death of all those I had scratched off my list, but I had not murdered them. Justice demanded that those murderers, those who had intentionally ripped their souls apart, died and I had simply done the handiwork. I was no murderer; my soul was intact.

"Just seems you're trying to make up for something, trying to be nice to that i_woman_/i." She stressed the final word as though trying to make it sound more insulting than it was. "I mean, were you _there_ when she was at Hogwarts?"

"No." Lies.

"I wasn't either, I left the year before," she said softly, staring up at her ceiling. "But my little brother, Owen, was."

A fuzzy image popped up at the back of my mind. _A small, dark-haired boy sitting in my common room, playing gobstones with his flatmates._ But the image was gone as soon as it had come.

"And the things she did to people," Lauren continued and a shudder coursed through her body. "It kind of makes you lose your faith in humanity."

_A girl, who had always had faith in what the world was and what the world could be, slowly losing that faith as she watched people commit the unspeakable and get away with it._ I swallowed hard, wondering who that girl was and thinking it just might have been me.

"I'm sure," I agreed. _She deserves…she deserves to die._

"You're a saint, Dawn Edwards." Lauren giggled tipsily as she sucked at her glass that she had long since drained dry. "Saint Edwards!"

She poured herself another glass and continued to babble. I wasn't sure what about, and I was beginning to suspect that neither did she. She laughed at odd places and raised her voice unnecessarily loud, and at one moment, jumped into an impromptu song. I only stared down at my own drink, the amber liquid that looked like water but smelled like cleanser. What she and I were doing reminded me remarkably of friendship. However, whatever Lauren might think, she and I would not, could not, be friends. I would not allow myself to grow so near in affection to consider her a friend; girls who did not exist did i_not_/i have friends. I was merely passing through her life, and she through mine. I was the audience in her drama, and she was the audience in mune. In a few months, I would be nothing more than a distant memory to her, and she—well, I likely wouldn't even remember her.

My gaze jumped about the room. To her radio, her kitchen that looked larger than mine (though that was not saying much, and to the small compacts sitting on the table between us. Idly, I picked it up before considering that I shouldn't have. I swiftly went to set it down, but Lauren, for the first time in nearly an hour, noticed me.

"Oh, love, you can have it," she slurred. "They're always sending samples in the post. Everyone on this floor gets them."

A single word piqued my interest. "Everyone?"

"Yeah," she said. Then she began humming again.

I turned the compact over and over in my hands, pondering an idea. _Everyone. Everyone on this floor. Everyone._ It all came to me, like the final piece of a puzzle clicking into place. I closed my fingers around the compact and smiled.

_Justice always finds a way._

* * *

><p>It was easy after that. All it took were a few drops of the method stirred—not shaken—into the sweet-smelling lotion, placed inside a sample-sized bag, and sent through the post to Alecto Carrow, labelled with a return address that I had seen on all of the samples in Lauren's flat. There were other samples that followed: powders, lotions, and perfumes. If it worked, it would only be a matter of time now. All I had to do was wait and see; it was torture.<p>

Through the weeks, I still continued to offer my friendship to Carrow, who continued to reject the kindness rudely. However, her rebukes seemed to contain less and less energy, and her face seemed more and more pale. Then she ceased to open the door at all. I could only leave small trinkets—baked goods and kind notes—on her doorstep and hope for the confirmation I so greatly wanted: that Alecto Carrow was dying.

Then at last, a few weeks later, I was conversing with Lauren the gossip who was yakking about her new job planning Draco Malfoy's wedding. I was generally interested in the details, as the name hammered in my mind: _Malfoy, Malfoy, Malfoy….soon, soon, soon._ However, Lauren broke during the conversation to remark, "Did you hear?"

"Hear what?"

"About Carrow."

My heart hammered in my ears and I dared to hope. "No. What about her?"

"She's sick!" Lauren was mature enough to hide her smile at the news…but only just. "Apparently, very sick. She's been seeing a Healer, but I've heard from Stephen—that's the landlord, love," she added at my frown of confusion. She had grown accustomed to my forgetfulness; she even called it endearing. "—that none of the Healers have had much success discovering what is wrong with her."

"Oh, no," I murmured. "Poor dear."

Lauren, even after this time, seemed taken aback. "Yes, yes, poor dear."

When she looked away, I allowed myself to smile.

_Justice found a way._

* * *

><p>It was September when a knock came at my door. I expected it to be Lauren, but when I cracked the door open, it was another face that stared at me. Dark hair. Soulless eyes. Lips that did not smile nor knew any true joy. Alecto Carrow.<p>

My lungs refused to claim air, but my fingers claimed my wand in my pocket. I was wary, even if I hoped beyond hope that I knew why she was here. I greeted her with a smile. "Miss Carrow! What a lovely surprise!"

Lovely, indeed. Her face was pale, her thin was hair, and she looked painfully thin, as though she was slowly wasting away. Her eyelids drooped and the side of her lip hung at an odd angle. She rubbed at her forehead, moaning dully, and her other hand leaned against a long pole, as though she did not have the strength to stand without it. Her appearance was familiar, and my heart began to race. It was happening; I had done it.

"Are you all right?" I asked, proud that my concern seemed earnest. "I heard that you haven't been feeling to well."

She eyed me, the same suspicion that had always been there dull in her eyes, but something had become brighter: hope. "You actually care how I feel?" she demanded.

I nodded.

She murmured under her breath something I couldn't make out; it sounded vaguely like she was arguing with herself. When I prompted her with her name, she jerked her head up and swallowed hard. "I need…I want…I must have your help." She cursed and growled at herself, as though it was the worst thing she had ever done.

I blinked, even as my heart hammered in delight.

"The Healers," she explained, "can't find what's wrong with me. But they think it's only going to get worse. They recommended that I find someone to look after me and you…you're the only one who's been kind to me for…for a very long time."

The idea that someone had been without kindness might have torn me apart, but this was Alecto Carrow, a murderer, a torturer. She was the i_almost_/i in the "i_Almost_/i everyone deserves kindness". But I did not let her know that. Not yet.

"Of course," I said. "Of course, I'll help you."

It was how Alecto Carrow came to be under the care of the woman who had caused her to become so very sick. And I did take care of her, hiding my disgust and hatred as she began to wither like a crossed flower. Lauren reluctantly offered her services as well, only because – she insisted—she admired my goodness and wished to aid me and i_not_/i as any servitude to Carrow. She left such things to 'Saint Edwards'. It concerned me little that Lauren was there. She volunteered little time, and I knew eventually she would stop coming at all. Then I would be alone to watch the rest of Carrow's days unfold.

The thing about watching someone die was the more you did it, the easier it got.

This would be the easiest one yet. As I watched the light fade from Carrow's eyes, I would smile and know that the world was a little more right, a little more just, and that I was just two mere steps from being free.

And no one, _no one_, could stop me now.


	4. Victims

**4. Victims**

by Northumbrian

"_Crucio_!" shouted Alecto Carrow.

Instantly, fire burned my bones; my muscles cramped and went into spasm. My back arched involuntarily and, suddenly, I was falling. I landed hard, elbow first, then hip, then head. I heard the dying echoes of my own scream as I lay disorientated on my bedroom floor.

The dream had been so real. I could still see Carrow's hate filled face, saying that word, torturing me. I could still see the ghostly image of the stone walls of the dungeon. My wrists felt chafed by the shackles around them, shackles removed years ago. I shivered and tried to fully wake from my nightmare, but I lost myself in memories.

"I've got to leave you, now, Corner," Alecto Carrow told me. "The Headmaster wants to see me. But don't worry. My brother will be along in a few minutes."

She strode from the dungeon and was almost immediately replaced by her brother.

"Help," I croaked weakly.

I opened my eyes and discovered that I was back in my bedroom. I watched as Luna clambered from my bed.

"You were having a nightmare, Michael," she assured me. "You need to focus on what is real."

"The pain is real," I mumbled.

"The pain _was_ real," Luna told me. She smiled reassuringly. "That was the memory of a pain from years ago, Michael, from before the battle. You were only eighteen. This is real. Here, now, you and me in your bedroom." I smiled gratefully, but the moment I felt safe, her features twisted and changed. She was Alecto Carrow! "I'll make you see reason, you filthy half-blood troublemaker! I'll teach you a lesson you'll never forget. _Crucio_!" There was joy in Alecto Carrow's voice as she, like her brother, shouted the word. The pleasure on her face as I again shrieked in pain was chillingly cruel. She was happy, she was enjoying herself.

I imagined that my own screaming woke me. The walls were resonating with my cries. This time, I kept my eyes closed. Was I really awake? The last time I'd opened my eyes, they had lied to me. Luna wasn't here; it had been eighteen months since she'd last been here.

"You are relying on me too much, Michael," she'd said. "There is no easy way to say this, but I don't love you. I thought that I did, but I was wrong. You are good-looking and clever and I felt sorry for you. I still do. I mistook sympathy for love. I thought that I could help you, and I think that I have, but I cannot spend my life looking after someone I do not love."

"But…" I'd begun desperately.

"Don't tell me that you love me, Michael. You say it, often. But you don't mean it. You need me. At least, you think that you need me. But you don't love me; you only think that you do. A lot of girls feel sorry for you, you know. But you don't need someone to be sympathetic, Michael; you need someone to love you. You need someone to tell you the truth, and I've failed you. You are the only person I have ever lied to. I lied because the truth hurts and you've been hurt enough. And now I must hurt you by finally telling you that truth. You need to face your demons, Michael; you need to face them alone. I'm sorry, but I have the opportunity to go to South America, to explore, to look for new beasts, and I'm going. Goodbye."

That memory was real, brutally, cruelly, honestly real, just like Luna, but I still did not risk opening my eyes. Was I still dreaming?

The hard surface I was lying on was covered in a smooth pile; I was lying on a carpet. My elbow, hip and head were sore, but my bones were not burning. Nevertheless, I knew that if I dwelt too long on the memory of the searing curse-induced pain I had endured all those years ago, it would arrive. When it did, my limbs would twitch with the angry ghost of the pain which continued to haunt me.

After the battle, Neville had agreed to take me to visit his parents. I had hoped that it would help; in fact, it had made matters worse. If Neville and Terry and the others hadn't rescued me from the Carrows, I would probably be in St Mungo's, in the next bed to Neville's parents.

My mind began to drift to those dark places. I recognised the signs; I was falling into fear again. After all these years I could still fall. That one word of pain was all it took, that unforgettable, unforgiveable curse-word. I needed to move, to work, to think about something else. I tried to concentrate on now, on here, on my actual feelings and not the memory of that madness-inducing agony.

I tried to be dispassionate, to examine my own body with a researcher's eye. There was no lingering pain, no hot needles inside my brain. I had i_not_/i been subjected to the Cruciatus Curse, I decided. Perhaps I had simply fallen out of bed. Perhaps dream Luna had been telling me the truth.

Where was I? I was wearing nothing but a pair of boxers and lying on a carpet. My skin was cold and clammy. I could feel my sweat-covered body cooling. I waited until I was cold and shivering, until I was certain that these were true sensations, not simply another level of my dream, before cautiously opening one eye. I was lying on my bedroom floor and I was alone in my Kennington flat.

I struggled to my feet. Most of my bedclothes were in a crumpled pile on the opposite side of the bed. A glance at my clock told me that it was a few minutes after six in the morning, but I wasn't going to attempt to get back to sleep. I picked up the bedclothes and dumped them in an untidy pile upon my bed. As I did so, I noticed that my pillow was bloodstained. My hand moved up to my face for confirmation. I was not surprised to discover a hard crust covering my moustache and beard. My nose, too, was crusty.

I staggered into my bathroom and stared into the mirror. One glance confirmed my deduction. I'd had a nosebleed in my sleep, a bad one. My face was covered in my own blood. The nightmares had returned, and so had the nosebleeds. Luna had managed to end them, but now they were back.

As I showered, I watched the bloodstained water swirl around my feet and I tried to analyse my dream. I decided that it wasn't Luna's absence which had brought on my nightmare. As the water ran down my face, I finally knew who was to blame. It was the haunting spectre of Alecto Carrow, my torturer. She had hurt me six years ago, and she was still hurting me.

Eventually, the water around my feet ran clear. I had removed all visible signs of the blood. The insides of my nostrils remained scabbed and uncomfortable, but I knew better than to pick and poke at those unhealed wounds. The slightest touch and I would bleed again. My mind and soul, I realised, were in the same state as my nose.

Dried and dressed, I wandered into my kitchen. The larder was almost empty. There was nothing for my breakfast. The loaf was stale and the milk was rapidly becoming cheese. My head was throbbing, and I did not feel like eating. Common sense, however, told me that I needed to get some fresh air and that I really should eat.

Luna would have cajoled me, pampered me and probably gone out to buy breakfast.

No, I was wrong; she would not! She would never have allowed me to run out of food. Luna was right, I realised; I had been using her. She had been my crutch. Without her, I was limping, staggering, and sometimes falling. But before her, I'd been leaning on Terry and Anthony. Now, I was alone. I rarely entered the office, my social life was non-existent. Poor Michael Corner, all alone, unloved and unwanted.

"'Pull yourself together, Michael," I told myself sternly. "Stop feeling sorry for yourself. You have a good and well paid research job; you are working at the very edges of Arithmantic theory. You are doing what you've always wanted to do. All you have to do is prove your system works."

I walked out from my kitchen and examined myself in the mirror above my fireplace. My beard definitely needed trimming, and I needed a haircut. I was a shaggy-haired recluse. I wagged a finger at myself. "But you are not taking care of yourself, Michael, and worse you are talking to yourself. That's never a good sign." I found myself nodding in agreement at my own words.

Whether or not I wanted to eat was immaterial. I needed to eat and drink. I decided to risk the not very fresh London air and buy myself breakfast. I walked from my flat, along several side roads, and onto a surprisingly quiet Kennington Park Road. I eventually found a café and ordered myself a coffee and a bacon sandwich. As I sat alone in the window of the café, I began to plan.

Who should I visit first? Carrow, Malfoy, or Mulciber? It did not take me long to decide. It had to be Mulciber.

It was easy for me to justify my decision. I did not know where he was. It would probably take some time to track him down. Fortunately, I reasoned, I had plenty of time. The others could wait. I went very carefully through what I knew.

Fact: five people had died. Fact: all had died a 'natural' death. Fact: in four cases a girl, 'The Girl', had been present (I had been unable to find any sign of 'The Girl's' involvement in the death of the Auror Bryn Prosser, but I had no witnesses at all to that death). Fact: in the four cases I had confirmed the presence of 'The Girl', she had been near the victim for some months. Fact: in three cases (probably four), 'The Girl' had remained with the victim until after death occurred.

Conjecture was becoming easier as the deaths continued. More deaths meant more data. Dreadful though that fact was, with every death I would get closer, it was inevitable. I still had no real idea about her method. Whatever 'The Girl' was doing—however she was making her victims ill—it took her some time to do it. The deaths were spaced from one hundred and fifty to two hundred and eighteen days apart. I had the dates and I had calculated the timings. I knew the current mean, median and standard deviation. Even without running the RANDOM system, I was confident that I had at least five months, and possibly seven, before the next death. Numbers don't lie. I knew that whoever was next to die would almost certainly die in October, November, or December.

It was early June. I had a month or more before anyone was in serious danger. 'The Girl' needed to be close; she needed to be there at the end. So I must make Mulciber a priority. I must find him and warn him. I must find out if a girl was visiting him. The others could wait for a couple of weeks. They could even wait for a couple of months if necessary.

Patrick Mulciber proved very difficult to find. It took me rather more than a month to track him down. He was living on an island called Inishaughy, in the middle of Upper Lough Erne, in the north of Ireland. The island was hidden in dozens of ways, and was covered by an anti-apparition jinx and several alarm spells. Flying to the island had been prevented, too. The only way onto the island was by boat.

I Apparated to Knockninny, transfigured a broken branch into a boat, and made my way across to the island.

I landed on a narrow pebble shore a few hundred yards from Mulciber's refuge. I disembarked and strode towards the white-walled cottage. I had taken no more than a dozen steps when there were several flashes of blue light, and I found myself surrounded by half-a-dozen grim-faced Aurors.

"Auror Office!" a pony-tailed man yelled. I recognised him. I turned to face him, and then everything went black.

When I regained consciousness, I found myself wandless and in a cell. Minutes later the pony-tailed Auror opened the door.

"This way," he ordered, pointing. "And don't try anything."

I walked along a dimly-lit barrel-vaulted stone corridor with the Auror behind me. His wand was pointed at my back. When I reached a locked door, I stopped.

"Auror Williamson and prisoner Corner," the man announced, and the door was opened. Williamson motioned me through the warder's room and up a flight of stairs.

"Where are we?" I asked. There was no immediate answer as we ascended the staircase. I had decided he was not going to answer and was wondering what to do when, finally, he spoke.

"This is the Court of the Sheriff of Ulster, Corner," he said as we reached the top of the stairs. "First left," he added.

I looked at the sign on the door, opened it, and walked into 'Interview Room 3'.

"Sit," he ordered.

I sat.

"Michael Corner, Unspeakable, you are charged with trespass on a secure Ministry area. What was your reason for visiting Inishaughy?"

"I wanted to warn Patrick Mulciber that someone, a girl, was going to try to kill him," I said. Auror Williamson's mouth opened and closed, but no words came out.

"What makes you think that Mulciber is on Inishaughy?" he asked. "Did someone tell you? Who was it? Was it Boot, Potter, Bones, Brown, or Creevey?"

As I expected, he assumed that I must have used a contact, an Auror, to find out where Mulciber was.

"I didn't ask anyone," I told him. "I simply went through the paperwork. The Auror Office guards Mulciber, that's public knowledge. Everyone knows that he's under house arrest at a secure location. He can't be sent to Azkaban because it's full of people he betrayed, and the other prisoners would try to kill him, just like they tried when Lucius Malfoy was sent there.

"The Wizengamot's Revenue Scrutiny Panel examines all expenditure from all apartments, that's public too. I went through six years of files. The Auror Office owns eight parcels of land in very remote locations. This one is the only one with a regular expenditure, and that expenditure has been ongoing since Mulciber was placed under house arrest." I tried to stay calm and reasonable as I began to explain my theory.

This was important. Why did no one believe me? I told Williamson my suspicions but, like Robards, he was dismissive. I begged him to allow me to speak to Mulciber. He refused, and he kept me in a cell overnight while he made further enquiries.

The following day I was released without charge, but with a warning not to reveal Mulciber's location to anyone. I again tried to be allowed to speak to Mulciber. I begged. When Williamson refused, I handed him a letter, and asked him to deliver it to the prisoner. He said that he would consider it, but he reminded me that no one else knew where Mulciber was, and that even I had not managed to get close to him.

"Get out, Corner," he ordered. "If you try to get onto that island again, I will re-arrest you and have you charged. How could someone kill Mulciber? Without one of these you can't get onto the island without setting off an alarm." He pulled a small silver medallion from his pocket and showed it to me. "You're an Unspeakable, you're supposed to be clever. If you can't get onto the island, what chance does some fantasy girl have?"

He didn't wait for a reply. He simply stood and walked from the room. I considered stunning him and stealing the medallion, but I decided against it. I watched as Williamson left. He handed the medallion to the duty Bailiff, who locked it in the safe. It was obvious that Mulciber had not been visited. I should concentrate on the other two targets.

I was not surprised to discover that there was no formal record of my arrest. Nor were there any reports in the press. The Auror Office would keep this quiet and they were probably already busy redacting information from the public files. They would ensure that no one else would find Mulciber using the method I'd used.

* * *

><p>At one time, Malfoy Manor must have been a grand place, I thought, as I strode purposefully up the weed choked gravel drive. But upkeep must be expensive and the garden was now overgrown. There was an air of neglect and hardship about the place. The Malfoys had lost much of their fortune. A combination of lost Ministry contracts and compensation claims from those imprisoned and … tortured … had seen to that.<p>

I hesitated. I knew the stories. Within these walls, Tom Riddle and Bellatrix Lestrange had killed and… Hermione had been… I stopped and checked my nose. It was not bleeding. I moved slowly forward toward that imposing front door. I'd arranged to speak to Lucius Malfoy, he never left the place.

Draco was now engaged to be married to Astoria Greengrass, daughter of another old Death Eater family. Astoria's father had died in the battle; he was one of very few Death Eaters killed.

The door opened as I approached and a house-elf bowed low in greeting.

"Hello," I said. "My name is Michael Corner, I have an appointment with Mr Lucius Malfoy."

The house-elf silently escorted me through an entrance hall. The portraits lining the walls glowered and hissed at me. They were Malfoy's through the ages. All bore the familiar pale and pointed features, and all seemed able to identify the fact that I was not a pureblood.

The house-elf opened a door and showed me into a large and well-appointed study. Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy sat side by side on a comfortable sofa. Neither stood when I entered; they simply watched as the house-elf escorted me to an uncomfortable high-backed chair facing them.

Lucius Malfoy sat with his left leg resting on a footstool, a walking stick at his side. He looked unwell; I panicked.

"Are you well, Mr Malfoy?" I asked. He looked startled by my question.

"You impudent young…" he began.

"Lucius," Mrs Malfoy interrupted her husband. "Mr Corner is an Unspeakable, and he is a friend of Harry. Any friend of my grand-nephew's godfather is always welcome. I'm sure that Mr Corner spoke from genuine concern, didn't you, Mr Corner?"

"Yes," I agreed while trying to work out what she'd said. She was talking about Teddy Lupin, her sister's grandson, I realised.

"I ask because several…" I paused.

"Several people who fought on the losing side at Hogwarts. People who, like us, were lied to and threatened by the half-blood Tom Riddle have died," said Narcissa Malfoy. She was gripping her husband's knee tightly as she spoke. Lucius Malfoy remained contemptuously silent. "I have noticed, Mr Corner, several people who we knew have died. We have heard rumours that you think that these deaths are connected, haven't we, Lucius?"

Mr Malfoy merely grunted.

I explained my theory carefully, and to my amazement, Narcissa Malfoy listened. She nodded, asked several very sensible questions, and questioned me closely about 'The Girl'. Lucius merely mumbled his agreement. There was a smell of stale firewhisky in the room, and I was fairly certain that it was coming from Lucius.

"You believe that a young woman is visiting former followers of Voldemort and, somehow, killing them." Narcissa Malfoy summed up our conversation.

I nodded.

"I can assure you that my husband is as healthy as he normally is. His injured leg causes him some pain, but otherwise, he remains well. Is that not so, Lucius?"

"Yes," her husband said.

"However, Mr Corner, I may be able to assist you. As you must know, my son will soon be married. I planned my own wedding with help from my parents. Weddings are traditional affairs and not really difficult to plan. My son's fiancée and her family, however, have other ideas. The Greengrasses have employed a young lady to help plan the wedding. She is visiting us at the moment."

I jumped from my seat.

"Please, Mr Corner, I don't want a scene. She may simply be exactly what she claims to be: a iwedding planner/i." Narcissa Malfoy's contempt for the very idea was obvious from her final words. "Lucius is quite well, remember. The young lady's name is Lauren Cauldwell. If you promise not to make a scene, I will introduce you to her. By all means, investigate her, but, please, do it discreetly. We Malfoy's do not want to be associated with any unpleasantness."

There was some considerable force in Narcissa Malfoy's final words to me. She was trying to improve the family's standing, but it was not easy. I tried to hold my excitement in check. This was _her_; it must be _her_! But I could not be sure! I needed to see her, to check her identity. If Lauren Cauldwell did not exist, then, and only then, would I act.

"I won't say anything, Mrs Malfoy. You have my word," I assured her.

Narcissa Malfoy nodded. She stood, smoothed her elegant and expensive, but rather unfashionable, robes and walked to the door. We left her husband in the study, and she led me through the entrance hall to another door.

"My son and his fiancé are in the library with Miss Cauldwell," Mrs Malfoy said, opening the door.

Draco Malfoy sat languidly in a chair, looking on disinterestedly while two young women pored over a book of fabrics. All three turned. Draco stared at me, puzzled. He'd obviously failed to recognise me. The two girls looked at me curiously. One was a statuesque and striking brunette in form-fitting robes. Her deep brown eyes took in my hair, beard and robes, and she shuddered. The other girl was a bony and horse-faced young thing with hair the colour of Luna's.

"Is this one of the wedding party, Mrs Malfoy?" the brunette asked. She looked worried by the thought.

"Merlin!" Draco exclaimed. "You're 'Crucio' Corner. I didn't recognise you under all that hair."

I gasped and staggered when Draco said the word. I tried to draw myself up to my full height, but my knees where buckling.

"Corner used to be quite the ladies man at school, Astoria," Draco drawled. "But, somehow he ended up with the Lovegood and just look at the state he's…"

Narcissa Malfoy stepped alongside me, and Draco lapsed into silence.

"Mr Corner is our guest, Draco," Narcissa said.

I tried to ignore Draco and to watch the two young women. They were both staring at me so surreptitious observation was impossible. I stared back at them.

"Have you made an appointment with my sister, Miss Cauldwell?" Narcissa asked. "Her grandson will be a page-boy. Dear little Teddy is so looking forward to it."

"I am seeing her on Saturday, Mrs Malfoy," the attractive brunette said.

"Good. Come along, Mr Corner." With a curt nod, Mrs Malfoy swept from the room leaving me no alternative but to follow.

"I hope that you are satisfied, Mr Corner. You can be certain that I will be keeping a close watch on my husband's health. If there is any change, I will be in touch. In return, I expect you to do your best to discover whether we have a killer in our midst." Narcissa Malfoy stopped, and I discovered that I was standing at the open door to the manor. Mrs Malfoy produced a card from her robes. "Here is Miss Cauldwell's business card. Goodbye," she said pointedly.

I left. I had no choice. Narcissa Malfoy was certainly a force to be reckoned with, and, innocent or guilty, Miss Cauldwell might find herself in serious danger were Lucius Malfoy to fall ill.

I spent weeks checking on Lauren Cauldwell. She was a real person. She had a younger brother, Owen, she had parents, she worked as a wedding planner and I could find no evidence that she was 'The Girl'. I could not place her at any of the deaths, but neither could I find categorical proof that she was elsewhere when the deaths occurred. She travelled with her work, moving from place to place, from wedding to wedding.

Further research showed that Owen Cauldwell had been tortured by the Carrows. Was that motive?

I still had not seen Alecto Carrow. I needed to see her, to warn her. Lucius Malfoy was not ill; Patrick Mulciber was being guarded by Aurors. I should go and see Carrow.

I must go and see Carrow.

I must ignore the voice in my head which asks: why?

It was late September; the critical time was fast approaching. I returned to my notes on Carrow and that's when I realised what a fool I'd been.

_Alecto Carrow, Flat 46, Aireside House, The Calls, Leeds._

I pulled out the business card Narcissa Malfoy had given me.

_Lauren Cauldwell, Wedding Planner, Flat 49, Aireside House, The Calls, Leeds._

She was close to two victims, not one. Why? Perhaps the sudden release of Alecto Carrow had forced her to change. Whatever the reason, I had to visit Leeds. I had found my killer. Now, all I needed was proof.

Lauren Cauldwell had seen me; she would recognise me. But she had not really paid much attention to me. I was long-haired, bearded and robed when she saw me, so I went to Diagon alley and treated myself to a shave and a haircut. With my beard trimmed to a fraction of an inch and several inches cut from my hair, I felt, and looked, like a new man. My hair now merely reached my shoulders. I swept it back from my face, returned home, and changed into Muggle clothes. I looked different, tidier.

I wore black; it seemed fitting. I packed a suitcase with my Muggle clothes, Apparated to Leeds, and booked myself into a Muggle hotel near the Royal Armouries. I was on the opposite bank of the river to Aireside House, but I was only a matter of minutes away. I unpacked my clothes and made myself at home in the hotel room. It was time for me to face Alecto Carrow.

I determinedly walked along the riverside, crossed a footbridge, and strode up to the building. I stopped.

A vision of a sneering Alecto Carrow swam before my eyes.

"I've got to leave you, now, Corner," she said. "The Headmaster wants to see me. But don't worry. My brother will be along in a few minutes."

_At least I'll have a few minutes respite,_ I thought.

I was hanging, slumped forwards on the chains in the dungeon, the manacles digging into my wrists. I still have scars on my wrists, but that pain was inconsequential; it was nothing, no more than a mere inconvenience, an itch. It was the curse—that was pain—that was undiluted pain, raw and real and…

"_Crucio,_" she yelled as she left the room and locked me in that cell. I was still sobbing when her brother arrived.

I was still sobbing when I arrived back at my hotel.

I ordered a coffee from a concerned receptionist who looked to be about sixteen-years-old, and I sat in the lobby and drank. I was trying to do the right thing. I was trying to save a life. But, of all the lives to save, why was it _hers_? All life is sacred, that's what Luna said. Is it? Is not saving someone the same as killing them? I knew Luna's answer to that, too. Yes.

I waited a day. One more day would not hurt.

The following day, I got into the building. I was walking across the foyer towards the lift when my nose started to bleed, and it would not stop. I spent the afternoon mopping up my face, and cleaning myself up. When the blood finally stopped flowing, my head was pounding. I had not had a really serious post-nosebleed headache for years. In the days after the battle, they had been a regular debilitating occurrence.

The next day, I rested.

The following day I managed to get into the lift and up to the fourth floor, but my feet would not move. I stood, helpless as the doors closed, and I returned to the ground floor.

At my next attempt, I got no further than the lobby. I was just entering the building when Lauren Cauldwell strode from the lift. I looked at her, and she at me. I was a lot smarter than I'd been the last time she'd seen me, and I don't think that she recognised me. She was wearing smart Muggle clothes and she was confident, poised, and beautiful. Was that really what a multiple-murderess looked like? I tried to follow her, but she spotted me, turned into an alley, and Disapparated.

The next day, I was determined; I was strong. I strode into the lift and stepped out onto the fourth floor. I walked purposefully along the corridor to flat 46 and I raised my fist to knock. My muscles locked. I could not bring my fist down on the door.

I stood there for several minutes, simply staring at the door. My upraised arm fell to my side. So close, I was so close. This time, I could not give up. I raised my fist higher, determined to try again, and then the door to the adjoining flat opened, and a young woman looked out.

She was a slight little thing, with straight blonde hair. She was pale and rather worried looking, and vaguely familiar.

"Marlene Brocklehurst," I said.

She looked surprised.

"Marley, you always wanted to be called Marley! I'm Michael Corner," I said. "Your sister, Mandy, was in my house, in my year."

The girl slumped. Mandy had died in the battle, despite Ginny's best efforts. Ginny and Nevill had managed to get her to the hospital wing, but too late. My comments were hardly sensitive. I strode across to her and grabbed her elbows. She allowed me to help her back into her room. It was a tiny little place. I was standing in a combined living and kitchen area with two doors off it; bedroom and bathroom, I assumed. My Kennington flat was small and cramped, but hers was positively claustrophobic. There was only one armchair, a horrible mustard-coloured thing. I guided her to it and sat her down.

"Are you okay?" I asked. She nodded.

I looked at her in concern. 'Mandy's shadow' we'd called her at school. She was a Hufflepuff, unlike Mandy, but whenever we were out of the common room, Marley would appear and Mandy would roll her eyes apologetically. Anthony had always teased me about her. He reckoned that she fancied me, but that was when I was with Cho.

Marley Brocklehurst looked ill. She stared at me in utter confusion as if my appearance had brought her world tumbling down. It probably had. She had always been 'Mandy's shadow,' but Mandy was dead. My presence, and my tactless words, had probably reminded her of her loss.

"How are you, Michael? What are you doing here?" she asked.

"Do you know a girl called Lauren Cauldwell?" I asked.

She nodded.

I told her my story. I watched her eyes widen in shock, but, like Narcissa Malfoy, she understood. She believed.

"Alecto Carrow is ill," she told me. "I've been nursing her. I've been helping Lauren to nurse her."

My jaw dropped.

"How is she doing it?" Marlene asked.

"I don't know," I told her.

"We need to find out," Marlene said. "Would you like a cup of tea? Or a chocolate chip cookie? I've just been baking."


	5. His Killer

**5. His Killer**

By C_A_Campbell

_Marlene Brocklehurst._

I didn't know the name, and yet somehow it had resonated in the back of my brain, like a foghorn calling to ships in a misty sea. The sensation of knowing without understanding had taken me by surprise. Perhaps, that was why I had slumped; perhaps, that was why he had found it necessary to help me into the armchair. I had blinked at him in confusion. His dark beard and long dark hair didn't register anywhere. I hadn't known who he was or why he thought I was this Marlene Brocklehurst, but the more he spoke, the more I had realized that I could not correct the man. If he thought I was Marlene Brocklehurst, someone he trusted enough to tell all he was revealing, then Marlene Brocklehurst I would be.

Someone had figured it out, which meant there was someone, just one someone, who had the power to stop me. He thought that Lauren–gorgeous, presumptuous, upbeat Lauren—was the one responsible. It was nearly laughable; Lauren could not be a servant of justice. But I knew, if I did not want him to know the truth, I must deceive him. So I had assured him that I believed, had informed him that Carrow was sick, and had stated that we had to sort out the method.

Then I had offered him a cookie.

Now, standing in the kitchen, I had my first opportunity to sort out all that had been said. _Marlene Brocklehurst. Marley,_ I repeated in my mind as a collected cups for teas. Why did that name sound so familiar?

What else had he said? What else?

I rubbed my head as a slow ache started behind my eyebrows. I filled the cups with water, heated them with a quick Warming Charm, and lifted the cup. Tea bags. Where had I left the tea bags?

_"Your sister was in my house, in my year."_

As though swept away by a great gust of wind, the fog in my mind cleared, and I remembered. I remembered.

_A girl with wild curls and blue eyes reached toward me. I was only five, but I felt even smaller. _

"_Mummy," I demanded. "I want Mummy."_

"_Sh," she said soothingly. She was only a year older than me, but she seemed like a giant as she held me to her. "I'm going to take care of you now. I promise."_

_So I clung to her. For the rest of her life, she was all I had and all I wanted._

Images chased one after the other, overwhelming my mind.

_Two little blond girls—one with curls, one with hair as straight as board, but both with the same blue, blue eyes—chasing each other across a green yard. _

_The same girls standing on a crowded train platform, the younger clinging to the elder's hand as I begged her not to go: Please, please don't go. _

_Then I was sitting on a stool with my eyes focused on my sister, hoping I'd be in Ravenclaw, just so I could be with her: Hufflepuff. No, not Hufflepuff. Running after her down the Hogwarts hallways: Hey, Mandy…Hey, sister…Hey, guess what?_

A thousand other memories swim around in circles in my head, memories of a life defined by being a sister. One moment they weren't there, and the next they are. Some stand out more brightly than others.

_I joined her in her common room, only half to see her. "Don't you think he's handsome?" I whispered._

_She gave me that look, with those fierce blue eyes saying 'Don't be silly'. "He has a girlfriend. Marley."_

"_Oh."_

Michael…of course, how could I have forgotten Michael. And Mandy…how could I have forgotten my own sister?

Then the next memories come and I understand. I forgot, because it was easier than remembering.

_"I'm not leaving, Mandy! I'm of age, and I want to fight for justice. Besides, if you're staying, then so am I."_

_Mandy's glared relaxed. "Fine. But stay with me. I have to take care of you."_

_And I swore that this time I would be the one who took care of her. _

_And then we were fighting…fighting…fighting._

Faces. Images. Spells. The one face stood out against the rest. I hadn't known her name then, but I did now. Clarissa Crabbe.

_I lifted my wand, about to speak the spell I had heard one of the Carrow's cast. But before I could, Crabbe's wand flew upright. I screamed at the same moment as she did. In the chaos, in the burst of smoke that dilutes the memory, I hear a scream of agony. When the smoke clears, there is only Mandy. Mandy and blood. So much blood…blood…blood. My sister was dead_.

I finally broke from the memories. I was disoriented for a moment, unsure where I was. I wasn't in a Hogwarts hall, watching my sister be sliced open. I was on my knees in a small kitchen, sobbing because I had forgotten my sister. Sobbing, because I had remembered and she wasn't here.

A pair of boots appeared in my vision, hurrying toward me. Glass crunched beneath them—I had dropped the cups.

"Marley," Michael asked, his voice agitated with worry. "Are you all right?"

I shook my head and tried to explain, but all that came out were chokes and more sobs. Finally, I managed one word. "Mandy."

It seemed to be all he needed. "Oh," he said, before kneeling down beside me. He patted my shoulder awkward and made soothing sounds, none of which were helpful, but it was comforting that he was trying. Perhaps that was what made me seize the front of his clothes and bury my face on his shoulder. Maybe, or perhaps it was just good to see him again, to see anyone who had known me before all there, to hear him whisper my name softly: "I'm sorry, Marley."

I, at last, managed to calm myself. I leaned away from him and swiped at my eyes. "Sorry," I mumbled.

"No, it's all right." He stood and helped me to my feet. I held on to his hand a bit longer than necessary, before taking a step back. "It's my fault," he added uneasily. "It was thoughtless of me to mention her so nonchalantly and then burden you with all of this. I'm sorry."

I shook my head, and my hair clung to my wet cheeks. "No, it's just—" Somehow, I know better than to mention I hadn't remembered. He wouldn't understand that it was somewhat nice to forget. However, I knew, I couldn't forget again. If I was to convince him that I wasn't the one who had caused the death of these people, and somehow I was utterly terrified that Michael might find out what I had done, then I had to remember our shared past. So, I took a deep breath and was more honest than I had been for a long time. "Crabbe killed my sister."

Crabbe—horrible, murderous Crabbe—had stolen my sister's life, and I had brought justice to her. I had watched the life flee from her eyes; I had brought justice to my sister, which was, I thought, what had first led me to seek justice. I wondered if she would be proud of me.

His eyes widened. "Are you certain?"

I nodded. "How could I _not_ be?"

He winced, and I realized how the words must have sounded sharp. I meant to apologize, but he was already continuing, "Why didn't you testify?"

I swallowed. Why hadn't I? I remembered following the trial in the _Daily Prophet_ and being furious when they cleared her of her charges. But I had never testified; Mandy's name had never been mentioned in court. Why? I had a notion, and I ran with it. "They wouldn't allow me to. I was…there when she died…" I felt tears biting at the back of my eyes again, and I hung my head so that my cheeks were hidden by my hair. Only then did I let them crawl slowly down. I discretely brushed them away and then continued. "And they said my testimony couldn't be trusted because of my emotional connection."

I waited for an accusation that I had been dishonest. None came. I had no idea who _they_ were, but _they_ must have done just that.

Michael nodded. "I understand how you feel. Six years and it still feels like yesterday, doesn't it?"

I nodded in agreement.

"Sorry," he murmured again.

"For what?" I asked.

He only shrugged.

"Oh, dear," I exclaimed as I looked down at my feet. The tea cups had shattered and water had spread. I drew my wand to fix it, but he had already drawn his. With quick Charm work, he Repaired the tea cups and Vanished the warm water.

I smiled up at him. "Thank you."

He gave a begrudging smile back, and I remembered why I had come into the kitchen for the first place. I reached for the plate of freshly-baked cookies. Their sugary aroma filled the kitchen, and I breathed them in. I held the plate out, and he reached towards one. Then I remembered. I had baked those cookies for Carrow, for they were the only thing I seemed to be able to coax her into eating. The only thing I could still use to get the method into her system. A thousand thoughts warred in my mind as I watched his hand slowly descent. If he took the method, if he grew sick, he would be unable to investigate any farther. His danger would be gone. His fingers brushed against a cookie.

I dropped the plate, watched it shatter against the floor.

My gasp came just a moment too late. "Merlin, I'm so sorry. I've always been so clumsy."

It wasn't that. It was true that I had been clumsy, but I had dropped them on purpose. Perhaps, if he became ill, it would make it easier to finish my tasks. But he was an innocent. His soul was whole and good. I could never harm him.

"It's fine," he said. He paused. "I really only came to see…to see…Carrow. I should warn her about…but I don't know it if it is Lauren. Do you think you could come with me?"

"I – I don't think that's very wise," I objected.

"Why not?"

I thought swiftly. "Miss Carrow is very ill, very fragile. Seeing you might…well…" I trailed off as he went pale, horribly pale. "Are you all right?"

He gave a tense nod.

I searched my mind, tentatively touching at my memory that still felt raw and bruises. Rumours had been whispered those last few months at Hogwarts: _Michael Corner…tortured…lucky to be alive._ The very idea made me want to cry – and made me want to scream in rage and shove every last crumbled cookie down Carrow's throat until she choked on poison. _She deserves to die!_

When I spoke, my voice was soft, even weak. "I'm so, so sorry, Michael. I'd forgotten."

He shrugged his shoulders again and looked down at the floor.

"I truly am sorry." I reached forward, grasped his arm gently, but desperately. I was suddenly frantic for his forgiveness. He looked up at me, raised his eyebrows. "I'm sorry I wasn't brave enough to stand up for you." i_I'm brave enough now,_/i I wanted to add, but I didn't think he'd understand.

He blinked at me for a moment, squeezed my hand in his. "You fought in the battle; you were brave enough." He released my hand. "And I thank you for your concern, but I really have to see Carrow. I have to figure out how Lauren is doing it."

"But I think I might know how," I said before thinking. All I knew was that I could not allow him to see Carrow. It could ruin everything. I had to buy time and keep him from danger.

His eyes brightened in excitement. "How?"

_How…how…how…_ "The tea!" I blurted finally. "Lauren always brews the tea." i_Lies!_/i Lauren's idea of helping was yakking about her day, until Carrow ordered me to make her get out before she _Crucio-ed_ the drama out of her. "Couldn't that be how?"

"If she's using a form of poison," Michael said, with a vigorous nod, "that is very likely. Did she make some today? Would there be any left I could use as a sample to test it?"

I didn't know, but I still shook my head. "But she'll be back tomorrow. I can get some then."

"That's perfect!" A smile spread across his face, and I felt myself smile with him, even as my stomach twisted in guilt for deceiving him.

"Then you can meet me here." It would buy me time, and meeting him again, I might be able to find out what he knew. He said he knew about possible victims. I needed to know if he had warned them – and if, in his investigation, he may have found Mulciber. It was possible. After all, he'd found me.

"On second thought," Michael added, glancing at the adjoining wall and then down at the shattered plate and crumbled cookies. "It might be…safer to meet elsewhere."

I laughed.

* * *

><p>We met at a café alongside the river. I clutched the vial close as I slid onto the chair across the table from him. He was sipping on water, clutching his head.<p>

"Are you okay?"

He grunted. "Headache."

"Sorry," I replied. "If I was back at the flat, I'd brew you some Pain-Relieving Potion."

Any response he may have had was interrupted by the waitress. The robust woman with cherry-coloured cheeks that matched her vibrant lipstick raised her eyebrows. I couldn't decide whether to be nervous or amused that the Muggle had overheard the words that must have made me sound insane. I settled for a nervous chuckle.

"What would you like to drink?" the waitress asked.

"I'll have water, thanks."

She snapped her pad closed and waltzed off, the strings on her apron jiggling behind her.

I turned my attention back to Michael, who was gazing down upon me with such intensity I felt myself blush. I had borrowed a yellow shirt and long white skirt from Lauren for the meeting, though I kept questioning myself why I had found it necessary. It seemed horribly cruel to borrow clothes—something only friends seemed to do—from someone I was trying to make look like a killer. But deep down, I knew Lauren was in no real danger. No one could really ever believe she would have the courage to serve justice after they grew to know her. And it still felt wrong to deceive Michael, but I was only doing what was necessary, until it was all over. And it would be soon, so soon.

"Did you get it?" he demanded.

I passed the vial to him. "I filled it with the tea she brewed." _Lies!_ It had actually been tea I had brewed. I had laced it with a minute amount of a well-known poison. Identifying it would keep him busy for a least a few days; another few to figure out that the amount would never really cause anyone harm, even after a lengthy exposure. By then, Carrow would be dead. I would be sure of that.

He tucked it carefully into his pocket. "Thank you, Marley. I'll have some tests run on it; see if anything comes up."

"You're welcome." I smiled, then looked swiftly down at my menu when he smiled back.

I ordered food, while he just sipped on his water. The conversation started slowly, awkwardly, but soon we were talking easily. We didn't discuss the case, not there were we could be overheard. We conversed about more neutral things.

"Did you ever get married, Michael?" I asked daringly, not sure why it mattered.

He chuckled as though there was something humorous about that statement. "No."

"A girlfriend, then?"

"No," he repeated, though this time he shifted uneasily and cast his eyes downward. He quickly turned the conversation onto me. "And you?"

"I don't have a girlfriend," I said with a giggle.

He smiled. "A boyfriend, I mean?"

"Not one of those either." I laughed again then asked, "How's your head?"

"Better now," he said, almost gratefully.

I was glad to hear, and a part of me hoped that I had done something to relieve the pain.

We talked about how I had come to live beside Carrow and how I came to nurse her. I supplied him with the same old lies – I was a Healer looking for a job as a Healer.

"No job," he noted mechanically, "then how do you afford rent?"

I blinked. I hadn't expected that question, and my mind raced, searching through my puzzled memory for the missing piece that would explain.

"I'm sorry," he said swiftly, "that was rude. I'm naturally inquisitive."

"You're a Ravenclaw," I said with a kind smile, as though that fact explained everything, which it did. "And it's all right." The truth fell into place. "I have a bank account in my name. My dad, who's a Muggle, always sees things transferred there. It's his way of taking care of me, since he didn't know any better way after Mandy…well…" I trailed off and didn't continue. I wondered for a moment how my dear father would have felt if he knew the daughter he never saw used his funds to serve justice and bring about the death of criminals. Would he be proud that I had brought his killer to justice?

"I'm sorry."

"You've got nothing to apologise for." He looked as though he might apologise again, so I swiftly finished my food and asked if he would walk me back to the flat.

I was pleased when he agreed.

On the streets, we were able to talk more freely. I attempted to persuade him to tell me more – how he had come to suspect Lauren. He told me about warning Malfoy, and my skin grew cold. It would make it harder to gain Malfoy's trust, but I knew justice always found a way. I asked if he had tried to warn the other victim. He said he'd attempted to, but failed. When I pressed for more details, he said he couldn't tell me anything more. I quickly retreated before he grew suspicious, but I bit my lip. He clearly knew where Mulciber was, and I would have to find means of extracting the information. But for now, I was content to allow the conversation to move on to more light-hearted matters.

My heart grew warm as we talked; it seemed strange. My heart had felt little over the past years: passion, determination, hatred, and all the emotions that were useful in what I did. But happiness, companionship—never that. I reminded myself that I was trying to get closer to him only to gather any useful information and to throw him off the trail, but I knew that was only partly the truth. It was nice, not to be confused for once, to have someone who actually knew who I was. The fact that is was Michael made it temptingly sweet.

I surveyed him. I had fancied Michael in Hogwarts. He always been charming and smart and handsome, and he still was those things, I thought. At least, I was sure he was under the beard and the scars of the past.

_Careful,_ I warned myself. It would be dangerous to allow him close, and I wouldn't dare. But I had a strange hope that I might be able to make him understand. And then, if he could understand, even if he could never know what I had done – perhaps when this was over, there would not be obligations. It had been a long time since I had thought about what would happen after this was over and I was free to do something other than bring justice. I didn't allow my mind to wonder too far, but a question lingered. What if?

What if I could make him understand?

"Michael, can I ask you a question?" I said, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear.

"Of course," Michael said.

"Why are you trying so hard to save Carrow?"

His face paled, his feet stopped, and his head turned towards me. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, after what she did to you, wouldn't you want her to be brought to justice?"

I watched him closely. He rubbed at his temples as though his headache had returned. "And what about you? You're the once managing to nurse her. How can you bear it?"

"I—I deal with my demons in my own way." That was astonishingly the truth. "But this is about _you_, not me. Don't you want justice?"

"Is this justice?"

I stifled my gasp. His question stung, but I knew better than to leap to my own defence. I wanted him to understand desperately, but if I pressed too hard, I knew he would become suspicious.

He sighed. "It's the question I've been trying to ask myself. Where does justice end and revenge begin? Must one unspeakable act be followed by another? The first question, the only question, is: is it wrong to kill another person?"

I didn't answer his questions. To me, it was straightforward. It always had been. What the supporters of Voldemort had done was unspeakable. Letting them get away with it had been even more so. What I did was justice. I did not kill; I was not a murderer. My soul was intact, while theirs was shattered.

As we walked, my eyes drifted upwards. Past the tall buildings, I could make out the sky. It was slowly growing dimmer, the dark creeping up on the light that still fought valiantly for its position in the west.

"Look at the sky," I murmured, breaking the silence in one more attempt to make him understand. He lifted his gaze upward. "Tell me, Michael." I leaned closer. "Is twilight light or dark?"

He thought about it a moment. "It's neither or both; it's a mix. It's the space between; it's where light and dark meet."

I was taken aback, almost as though he had slapped me in the face. "It can't be both," I insisted, desperate for him to understand the truth. "Nothing can be both dark and light."

He raised his eyebrows, and I knew he still didn't understand. Good and bad. Justice and the unspeakable things they unjust did. Servants of justice and servants of evil. But he wouldn't understand that. I folded my arms over my chest, feeling my heart ache as my hopes dashed apart, and walked on briskly. I entered Aireside House before he had chance to catch up. We rode the lift in silence; I didn't look at him.

As we stepped onto the fourth floor, he eyed flat 46 warily, but bravely walked to me to the door.

"Good night," he said. "Thank you for your help."

I faked a smile and was grateful that I was so practised at it. "You're welcome. Let me know what you find." I unlocked my flat with a wave of my wand and stepped within.

He turned to leave.

"Michael," I called, one last hope in my head.

He turned.

"I fought in the battle."

He blinked, confused, but nodded.

"I fought and I would have killed to ensure that they didn't hurt anyone ever again. People like you, Michael, especially you. I would have killed to bring them to justice. Does that make me unspeakable, like them?"

He stared thoughtfully into space. "It's all about intent, I think."

"Good. My intentions were always good." I nodded. "I want to be the light, not the darkness. Good night, Michael."

His dark eyes staring at me curiously were the last thing I saw before I shut the door.

Maybe he would understand someday after all.

* * *

><p>Michael returned three days later; three days was all I needed.<p>

I greeted him with a smile and wasn't offended when he failed to return it. An intense look was on his face, and I knew already what he had come to tell me. I opened the door, he stepped in, and I shut the door behind him.

"What did you find?" I asked, hoping the anticipation I forced into my voice sounded genuine.

"The initial tests showed faint traces of a common poison," Michael explained. My eyes widened. "But further research showed that it was in tiny amounts. It wasn't enough to cause someone to become so sick."

I gnawed on my bottom lip.

"It must be a compound, the poison must be reacting with something else. Is there anything else you can think of?" he demanded urgently. I shook my head. "Anything at all? Candles?"

"No," I pressed. I twisted my hands together in an act of nervousness, anxiety that I did not feel. I was calm, almost too calm. "I've been watching Lauren carefully. I've not been letting her give Carrow anything. I don't know how she's doing it. But—" I stopped, bit hard on my lip.

Michael stared at me, and I knew he was already supposing what I had to tell him. "But what, Marley?" he asked, his voice cautious.

"Carrow is sicker." I let myself shudder, though it was more from delight than terror. I prayed her couldn't tell the difference in the tremor. "Michael, she's dying."

Michael paled, but he thrust himself into action. "I have to see her, Marley."

I nodded without hesitation, because I knew it had been coming. I had prepared myself for this. I had ensured that Lauren spent as little time there as possible. With the Malfoy wedding steadily approaching, that wasn't very hard. She was away now; she had left in a fuss early that morning, mumbling about great-nephews named after stuffed bears who couldn't 'just leave their hair brown, for Merlin's sake'. I had hidden all evidences of my method, so I was convinced that this visit would not cause me any harm.

I knew, however, that Michael was a different story. And I was sorry, so sorry, that he was insisting on being so bloody noble.

"Are you sure?" I asked him concernedly, and this time I didn't have to fake it.

Michael bobbed his head and swallowed hard. "I've got to."

"I'll take you to her, then."

I led him from my flat to the door next to mine. I saw him hesitate and swallow hard. He lifted a trembling hand to his temple, and I understood the cause for his terrible headache. I caught his hand. It was warm and strong.

"I'll be right here," I promised softly, and I hoped it brought him comfort.

He eyed me for a moment, his expression unreadable, then he squeezed my hand and nodded gratefully. He didn't release my hand as I opened the door, in fact the nervous pressure increased. He was frightened. We stepped inside together. Alecto Carrow's flat looked very much like my own, only she had a mustard-coloured sofa instead of a mustard-coloured armchair. I pulled him gently towards the bedroom.

"Wait here. I'll go first. Tell her she has a visitor."

I reluctantly released his hand and stepped into the bedroom, leaving the door ajar. The room was dark, and I drew my wand. I lit a few candles, but left others unlit. I had forced myself to increase the amount of the poison and the ways I was using my method, making her sicker faster. The candlelit flicked on her pale skin. She looked like a skeleton, a corpse that hadn't quite figured out it was dead. She was gaunt and brittle. Her face bore a tell-tale rash that if I squinted at just right, looked like a squashed butterfly. Her eyes barely peeked open as I said her name softly.

She groaned in response.

"Alecto, there's someone here to see you," I informed her. I spoke in the same quiet note someone speaks to a sick child, and it nearly made me sick.

"Send them away," she moaned.

"He's here to help."

"No one can help me now!" she shrieked. "Send him away!"

I took a step backward, considering how I would persuade Michael to leave, but the door was squeaking as its hinges swung open. Michael stopped forward, but he froze a few steps in. His eyes grew wide as he caught sight of her, and then he began to shake. I stepped to his side and caught his hand.

"It's all right," I said. _Lies!_ Whatever that beast had done to Michael that, even in her skeletal appearance, caused him to fear her, was not all right. It would never ibe/i all right.

"Alecto Carrow," Michael began. "You, I want to … help…" He tried to explain what had brought him there, but he was incapable of completing a sentence.

"Who is it, eh?" Carrow croaked. "Step into the light."

Michael swallowed hard and tightened his hold on my hand. He didn't look at me, so I didn't think he noticed that he was crushing my fingers. I didn't have the heart to pull away and only stepped with him into the light.

Carrow squinted across the distance, and I held my breath, waiting for her to recognise him.

"Alecto Carrow," he began again.

"You!" she shrieked so suddenly I jumped. "You!" There was so much rage and aggression in that word that it the letters of it seemed to explode violently.

Michael shook, opened his mouth, but this time no words came forth.

Alecto Carrow shoved herself upright, her vehemence feeding her with strength that she had not had for days. She stumbled over the bed and stood, shaking with rage as Michael cowered before her. "Come to help?" she spat. "You've come to gloat. Come to gloat at a dying woman! Come to see me in pain as some sort of revenge! Well, I won't have it!"

Michael's hand shook in mine and he was beginning to sob. He was clutching his head as the stress-induced headache returned. Some part of me wished to jump before him, to scream back in rage. How dare, how _dare_, she inflict more pain on him than she already had? Michael was an innocent. He was good and pure and innocent, and she had hurt him enough. Why couldn't she just die? But another part of me was afraid, as I remembered the old Alecto Carrow. A part of me was transformed back to the girl who ducked her head and pretended she saw nothing, while dreaming of the day she would make them pay. But in the end, that part that won was the part that knew I had an act to play, even for a moment more. So I only stood silently, clutching Michael's hand.

"Get out! Get out, before I torture you again!" She searched about for her wand, but I had long since taken it from her. Yet, insanely, she turned, thrusting her fist forward as though she held something. "_Crucio_!" she shrieked, then laughed as Michael began to fall.

I barely managed to catch him, to hold him upright. I attempted to pull him from the room, and he flailed about on weakened legs, stumbling. Carrow's screams of i_Crucio_/i propelled after us and landed into Michael like a physical lash. He half-stumbled, half-crawled into the hallway, supporting himself on the wall. His nose started bleeding, red droplets staining his shirt. I had barely managed to get him back to my flat, when he collapsed. I began to buckle under his weight, but I thrust myself towards the armchair. He fell into it, while I tumbled onto the ground. I clambered upright and checked on him. His nose was still bleeding, but a quick charm I had learned in Healing training stopped the bleeding. I checked him over, but he seemed otherwise all right. He was breathing well, simply unconscious and I thought it might be better to leave him like that for a moment.

Surveying him, I felt rage build beneath my skin, like a dull fire becoming a mighty flame.

_She deserved to die!_

I stormed from the room and back to hers, not sure what I meant to do, but with Michael's pain seared into my brain. I marched into my bedroom, but I froze when I saw her. She lay crumpled on the floor, clutching at her chest. For a horrible moment, I thought she had died, and I had missed the life leaving her eyes. Then she moaned.

"My heart," she whimpered.

So it was her black heart that would give out first, just like Jugson's. I nearly smiled at the irony; justice was most befitting.

"Help me," Carrow panted. "Help me."

"No," I said, shaking my head.

Her eyes widened. "I'm dying. Help me!"

"No," I repeated. "Yes, you are dying, Carrow. But the only thing I will help you to is the grave justice demands you go to."

She stared in disbelief as she strained to breath, then she gritted her teeth as she understood at last. "I was right about you; no one is that kind."

"Because you don't deserve kindness, Carrow. You deserve justice."

The dawning realization came to eyes, the last flicker of light in their dark, dying hue. "You did this."

"Yes, Carrow, I did." I nearly laughed triumphantly at the admittance. "It was I who brought you to justice."

Her jaw tightened, and she screamed out in rage, and I realized, here was one who would not beg for their life. It was a shame to miss the words, but I was grateful I would not be forced to deny her. She called me every name she could think of, and then she broke off, gasped, and fell silent. She was still alive, but only just.

"You deserve this, Carrow," I explained and there was only coldness in my voice. "You shattered your soul over and over. Feel remorse and perhaps God will have pity on you."

She shook her head stubbornly and talked in slow wheezes. "If … if my soul…is shattered…then so is…yours."

I shook my head, knowing this woman knew nothing of justice. "My soul is intact, Carrow."

I realized, a moment later, as I stooped towards her that she had not heard my words. The candlelight flickered in her eyes for a moment more, then her eyes grew so lifeless and dark that they didn't seem to reflect the candle's gleam.

Alecto Carrow was dead.

* * *

><p>Michael awoke an hour later. By then, I was ready. Carrow's flat was removed of all evidence; the Healers who had come for the body had come and gone. I had only a brief time to gather the potions had had prepared in the three days before, when he was stirring with a groan.<p>

"Michael," I said softly. I knelt on the floor by the chair as he blinked his eyes open.

He clutched his head and groaned again.

"Here, drink this." I pressed the potion into his hand. The other potion was mixed into the water glass in my other hand. "It'll take away the pain."

He hesitated for only a moment before he tilted his head back and let the droplets fall from the vial into his mouth. He shuddered at the taste, but a few moments later, he sighed in relief as his pain quieted.

He met my eyes, an urgent question in the grey orbs. "Carrow?"

"She's dead," I said. I wondered if the sorrow I tried for sounded genuine; I both needed to and despised myself if it had. "Her heart gave out. The…excitement…it was too much."

Michael hung his head, and it seemed that he was almost sorry. I wondered if he was.

"Drink this," I said, pressing the water into hand.

"Thank you," he said courteously and sipped at the water.

I felt my stomach writhe in guilt. I was about to deceive him more than I ever had, but I had to do it. He knew were Mulciber was, and this was the only way. Babbling Potion only works so well on its own, but when mixed with a narcotic like a pain reliever potion, it opens even the most secretive man's mouth almost like he had swallowed Veritaserum.

And so Michael began to babble—about Carrow, about the cases, about how he should have tried to contact Carrow sooner. And slowly, slowly, I stirred him towards the subject of Mulciber. I knew the effect of the potions would not last long, and so I must extract the information I needed soon. I bit my lip in anticipation as he began to talk.

"I suppose I don't have to worry about Lauren getting to him?"

"Why not?"

"Because no one can get on the island undetected without the medallion, and only the baliffs and Aurors have them."

The glaze of his eyes faded as the effect of the potion waned. My blood thrummed in my veins. Carrow was dead and Mulciber was close with my reach. Perhaps, reading my expression, Michael's face twisted downward. "I shouldn't have told you that," he pressed. "I wasn't supposed to tell anyone that."

His head jerked up suddenly. "Candles," he murmured, "There were candles in Carrow's room, like in Jugsons … unsafe, you should open the windows."

I do, they open and close eaily, unlike Jugsons."

"What? I didn't tell you about Jugson's window, Marley, how did you…"

"Don't worry, Michael," I whispered kindly. "You won't remember it."

I drew my wand from my pocket, and in one discrete spell, his memory rewound itself. The horror in his eyes faded, though confusion returned. "Carrow?" he demanded again, though it must have seemed like the first time to him. Memory was such a tricky thing. "What happened to Carrow?"

"She's dead," I replied softly and took his hands. "Alecto Carrow is dead."


	6. Revelation

**6. Revelation**

by Northumbrian

"Dead?" I asked.

Marley nodded. "I'm so sorry, Michael," she said. "The strain was too much for her, her heart gave out."

"I need to see her—to see her body. I need blood; I need something to analyse. I've always been too late. I'm too late again, but with blood, I could stop this," I told her desperately.

"She was a killer, Michael. No one else will mourn her passing. No one loved her," Marley spoke so earnestly.

"Her brother loved her, Marley," I reminded her. "He admitted to all of the crimes they both committed, He tried to keep her safe. It might have been bitter and twisted, but it was sibling love."

Marley's eyes widened at my words, and her breath came faster. Then, a moment later, she broke. Shoulders shaking and with her body racked by sobs, she stumbled to her feet and started towards the door, tears trailing down her cheeks. I tried to give chase, but my legs were weak and I fell to my knees. By the time I'd stumbled to the door, she was gone. I gazed along the corridor. Lauren would have vanished too, I was certain of that. But, now I knew! I knew who the killer was. I reminded myself that I still had no idea how she had done it.

_Poor Marley_, I thought. She'd lost her sister at Hogwarts. Mandy had been killed by a Septumsempra spell, a vicious spell and had died from loss of blood. She had been one of the last casualties if the battle, murdered by Crabbe at the very end.

_Killed by Crabbe at the end of the battle!_ Those words reverberated around my tired brain and a nagging worry at the back of my mind began to coalesce into a horrible form. The ghost of an idea began to appear, despite my efforts to banish it. Vincent Crabbe had died in the room of requirement, his father died in the final stages of the first phase of the battle. I'd assumed that Marley had been talking about Vincent Crabbe. After all, to me, to the DA, to everyone in my year, he was "Crabbe", but when Mandy Brocklehurst had been fatally injured both Crabbe, and his father had been long dead. I slumped to the ground.

Had Marley meant Clarissa Crabbe? Had the killer's first victim been the murderer of Mandy Brocklehurst? I tried to remember Marley's words. 'Crabbe killed my sister,' that's what Marley had said. I'd told her about the deaths, and she'd said, 'Crabbe killed my sister.' Those words were becoming a refrain in my head.

I was a useless investigator, I realised. In the laboratories, I could test and retest under controlled conditions. I knew that reliable, repeatable experimentation was the only way. That was how I worked in my laboratory in the Department of Mysteries. Everything was cause and effect. It was complex, painstaking work, but ultimately there was a solution, a final formula or theory.

The problem with people was that cause and effect were much more complicated. There were too many variables. Cho had proved that to me.

"You look beautiful," I had told Cho after a school Quidditch match. It was a Ravenclaw/Gryffindor game, the one Harry and Ginny call _The Quidditch Match_, even though Harry didn't even see it. Cho had been crying and was muddy and unkempt and sweaty, and yet she was still beautiful. At least I had thought that she was.

People are complicated. She got angry, I protested. Cho refused to believe me; she thought that I was being sarcastic, and that my genuine complement was an insult. We argued, I said things I still regret all these years later, and we split up.

I would never fully understand why people do what they do. I understood how things worked. The world is relatively simple, but people are complicated. One plus one is two; tea leaves plus boiling water equals tea; the temperature at which water boils varies depending upon the pressure it is under. These were simple concepts. Things I could understand and explain. But girl plus complement equals disaster, or success, or indifference. How do you know which? It's incalculable. There are more imponderables, more unknowns, than anyone could calculate. It would be easier to count every grain of sand on the planet.

Yet, even then, I thought that I could calculate the future. _Why?_

But, my method had worked. I had concentrated on the how and when of the murders. I'd tried to predict, and I'd succeeded, but I was no closer to the why, to the motive. What was the point in predicting events if you could not use that foreknowledge to prevent a disaster? I had both succeeded and failed. I knew when, within a reasonable margin of error, the next murder would occur, but as I sat in that corridor, I had no idea how or why.

"Who are you, and what do you want?" someone demanded. I looked up. A wizard was striding down the hall toward me. He was a tubby little man, and he wore a badly fitting toupee. I wondered why. It simply made him look ridiculous.

Terry was losing his hair; it happened. Terry wasn't bothered. Hair fell out or turned grey, and skin wrinkled. Like everything else, it was simply a matter of time. Did a toupee, or died hair, indicate some deep-seated insecurity?

"My name is Michael Corner," I said. "I've been visiting Marley Brocklehurst."

"Who?" the wizard demanded.

"Marlene Brocklehurst," I said. "She lives here, flat 48."

"No she doesn't," he told me angrily. "That flat is being rented by Dawn Edwards. Don't lie to me, young man."

"Dawn Edwards?" I asked. My insides vanished leaving an uncomfortable void. The ghost of an idea began to haunt my brain.

"Are you certain?" I asked, dreading the reply.

"I own these flats. I know who my tenants are!" he told me.

"How long has Dawn Edwards been here?" I asked.

I already knew the answer to that question. I wanted desperately to be wrong, but I knew that I was right. The idea was no longer a ghost; it had become real, a slavering dangerous monster of suspicion. The tubby wizard told me what I already knew, but didn't want to know. Dawn Edwards had arrived at Aireside House within days of Toni Alden leaving the dragon sanctuary. He must have sensed my horror.

"Are you all right?" he asked.

'The Girl' moved from one victim to the next, creating a new false identity every time. Here, in these flats, Lauren Cauldwell had remained Lauren Cauldwell. But Marley Brocklehurst was not Marley Brocklehurst, she was Dawn Edwards. I had not checked. I had seen her, I had recognised her, I had told her my story, and she had tricked me. I had never spoken to anyone else here. If I'd confronted Lauren, or Carrow, I'd have discovered Marley's secret.

"No," I admitted. "Can I see Carrow's room?"

"You're a journalist, snooping around after Carrow, aren't you?" the wizard's mood changed instantly. "Well, you're too late; the Healers took the body away hours ago. Get out or I'll call the law office; I'll have the bailiffs on you."

"Hours ago?" I asked.

"You're trespassing. Get out or I'll call the law office," he ordered. I pulled my watch from my pocket. He was right. I'd arrived at Marley's door—at 'Dawn Edwards' door—almost three hours earlier. My mind reeling, I stumbled to the lift and fled.

I had moved out of the hotel across the river days earlier. I didn't need to stay close to Carrow, not with an ally in the building. i_An ally!_/i Laughing bitterly, I Disapparated, returned to my flat and found myself a quill and a sheet of parchment.

I needed to be certain. Was I wrong about Lauren? Was Marley 'The Girl'?

I wrote myself a list. It was a very short list, simply four words.

Hospital.  
>Photograph.<br>Carrow.  
>Blood.<p>

I decided that, this time, I would act quickly.

My visit to the hospital was over in minutes.

I was not a relative, so I certainly could not see the body of Alecto Carrow, and if I did not leave immediately, the reception witch would call security. "Creep," she said loudly as I walked out.

The photograph was not as easy to find as I'd hoped, but, by the end of that day, I had found one. There, smiling among several other students on the Hufflepuff Gobstones team, was Marley Brocklehurst. I enlarged the photograph and cut everyone else from it. The years had changed her. The Marley I'd so recently met seemed small and waif-like compared to the girl in the school photo, but it was still recognisably her.

It could not be her. I could not believe it. Marley was Mandy's shadow. She was that quiet little girl who stared at me whenever she thought I wasn't looking and blushed when I caught her gaze. She was a harmless little Hufflepuff, not a vengeful demon.

Then I remembered her words to me. We had met and not quite flirted in a riverside café, and I had been pathetically glad to have a girl by my side for the first time since Luna. I had wanted an ally; I had wanted to be believed, so I had not listened to her confession: 'Why are you trying so hard to save Carrow?'; 'Don't you want her to be brought to justice?'; 'Is twilight light or dark?'; 'Nothing can be both dark and light.'; and her final plea, 'I want to be the light, not the darkness.'

I stared at the happy little blonde girl in the photograph, and I needed to know. Was I staring at a monster?

I went to Stone-in-Oxney first.

"Yes, that's Sally Smith," the pub landlord told me. "Her hair wasn't that colour, but that's her."

John Baddeley's neighbours confirmed that the girl in my photograph was Olivia Jones. A neighbour of Bryn Prosser confirmed that the girl had been living in the area, though she didn't know her name.

I did not dare visit Delilah Harper, so I sent a pre-paid reply owl under a false name and asked if the girl in the photograph was Betty Williams. I claimed that I was intending to hire her. Mrs Harper's response was a surprisingly fast confirmation.

Finally, I visited Robertson and Sinclair on Suntkelda. I did not need to. I already knew what they would tell me. I was right; although Toni Alden wore glasses and had darker hair, this was definitely her.

I went home and contemplated my next move. I'd written Carrow on my list, but I decided that, before visiting Azkaban, I would first return to Leeds. As I expected, Marley's flat was empty, and so was the adjoining flat. Both were available for rent.

I approached the landlord as a potential tenant. I was worried that he'd recognise me, so used a colour changing charm on my hair and beard, put on some half-moon glasses and wore robes rather than the Muggle clothes I'd been wearing the last time he'd seen me.

The landlord was much more amenable towards someone who might become a regular source of income for him. Carrow's flat would be thoroughly cleaned, and all of the furniture had already been replaced, he said. He was lying; I recognised the furniture from my brief previous visit. I looked around, but there was nothing to see.

While I was in that flat, in the flat where one of my torturers died, my mind began troubling me again. I was missing something. I was missing time. My final visit to Marley was longer than my brain remembered. I'd realised that at the time, but I had put my concern to the back of my mind for some reason.

I said that I was uncomfortable in Carrow's flat and expressed a preference for the other empty apartment. He was happy to show me round those rooms too. As I looked around Marley's flat I was finally certain that I was missing time. I wondered if she'd stolen memories from me. What had I discovered?

I asked the landlord about the previous tenant. "She wasn't another Death Eater type like Carrow?" I said.

"No," He assured me. "She left suddenly. I saw a very shifty looking character hanging around outside her flat, a scruffy-looking bloke. He looked like a bit of a thug, but I wasn't scared! I chased him away. Miss Edwards called at my office to pay her rent, and I warned her."

He looked up into my face.

"She told me it was an ex-boyfriend. He'd beaten her and was obsessively stalking her. She paid what she owed and left," he said. I smiled and nodded.

"I don't suppose that you don't know where she went?" I asked.

He recognised me.

"I'm just an honest businessman. Don't hurt me," he squealed. "I don't know where she's gone; she warned me that you might be back, but I don't know anything. There was no forwarding address."

"Honest? You lied about the furniture in Carrow's flat," I said. He ran out from Marley's flat, holding tightly onto his preposterous wig as he fled, and locked himself inside Carrow's.

"Go away," he screamed through the door. I quickly searched Marley's flat, but found nothing. There was no point in remaining. The Girl—Marley—always tidied up after herself.

As I stepped out of the lift on the ground floor, I looked out through the glass foyer and into the Muggle world. Lauren Cauldwell was strolling towards the door. I reached it first and held it open for her.

"Thank you," she said, a smile lighting up her face.

"I'm sorry," I replied.

They were the wrong words; I knew that the moment I spoke. I was apologising for suspecting her. They were the words I needed to say to her, but not what any sane and sensible person should have said. She looked puzzled, peered at me as though I was crazy, and then there was a flicker of recognition. Her eyes widened in fear, and she hurried towards the lifts. She was frightened of me. I thought about calling after her, but decided against it and left.

I returned home and spent the rest of the evening filling in the prison visitors form. Terry is an Auror, and he's visited the prison several times. He once joked that, since the goblins had taken over running Azkaban, getting in was almost as difficult as getting out. After three hours of form filling, I knew what he meant.

The following day, at ten in the morning, I arrived at Azkaban by Portkey. Apparition was now impossible for miles around the black pinnacle. Ministry authorised Portkey was the only way on and off the island.

The Portkey arrival point was a tiny wind-swept spike which had been magically levelled to create a slick stone platform roughly six feet in diameter. The timed Portkey was a tiny silver key. Beneath me, the North Sea crashed against the spike. Huge waves battered the sheer rock of the bulk of island, which stood in front of me. The crashing sea left spume trailing down the kelp-covered rocks. The air was heavy with spray, and I could taste the salt air on my lips the moment I arrived.

The only exit from my vertiginous platform was across a slender rope bridge. A sign on the bridge said, 'Leave wand here or do not cross.' I looked down at the jagged foam spattered rocks below and shivered. The bridge, I knew, would break if I kept my wand. Some wizards had protested at this, the first of the new goblin security systems in place. The goblin's reply was simple: "If you keep your wand, you can save yourself from the fall, but you can't enter."

The rumour was that the goblins were providing their services to the Ministry at no charge. The only work goblins were prepared to do for free, apparently, was to keep wizards imprisoned. Many thought that this was a bad precedent to set, but it seemed to be working.

I placed my wand in the receptacle and stepped onto the bridge. My weight immediately deformed the perfect catenary curve into a distorted hyperbola. I'm not good with depths, so I concentrated on the mathematics of the deformations I was making as I crossed.

The bridge ended in a sheer cliff face, and, as I approached, I looked up. I have no problem with heights. The gaunt block of Azkaban towered above me. I finally reached the other side, where an iron door was set into the cliff. I used the silver key to open the door and stepped into a dimly lit chamber. I was instantly deluged with water. Although Terry had warned me, the deluge still took my breath away. I had been washed clean of enchantments.

"Your pass, now," a voice demanded. A small hatch opened in one wall; it was no bigger than a letter box. I began posting the parchment through it only to have it snatched from my grasp by whoever was on the other side.

"Name!" the voice said.

"Michael Corner."

"Visiting which prisoner?"

"Amy—Amycus Carrow," I said.

"No! Which prisoner?" the voice was harsh and unforgiving.

"Amycus Carrow," I said, forcing myself to say the name again.

"Correct. Enter, Visitor Corner."

A door which, until then, had been invisible swung open. Ahead was a narrow corridor. Only one flickering torch lit the corridor, and it was near the entrance. Darkness lay beyond. I stepped forward and walked into the dark. The torch flickered and died just after I passed it. As it did so, a second torch flickered into life ahead.

This constantly moving light followed me as, with darkness both ahead and behind, I walked for four hundred and seventeen paces. My final step brought me to another door.

"Name?" I was asked

"Michael Corner, I'm here to see Amycus Carrow." I announced. The door swung open.

I found myself in a long room with six doors on either side. The second door on the left opened I strode forwards and stepped through. There, seated in front of me, was Amycus Carrow. He was pale, gaunt and broken. It seemed to me that he'd been crying.

"What do you want?" he said. "Have you come to gloat?"

"Your sister was…" I hesitated, but somehow, seeing him in chains and grieving for his sister made him less like the monster I remembered. He was pathetic, I realised, and a weight lifted from me. I looked at him afresh, and remembered how I'd seen him in the days before he became my torturer. He was stooped and scruffy. He was no more than a jealous little bigot, he was nothing.

"She was what?" he demanded.

"Your sister was…" I could hardly bring myself to speak the word because, by using it, I was demonising Marley. "…murdered," I said.

I had finally admitted it. I had voiced my belief for the first time. It was an odd feeling. Carrow had admitted to two murders. I was telling a murderer, a man who had admitted to killing people in cold blood, that his sister had met the same fate as his victims. Was this justice?

"Liar!" he screamed. "It was her heart! They told me it was her heart!"

"She was poisoned," I told him. "I'm certain of it, but I need to carry out tests."

"No." He was sobbing, head buried in his hands.

"I need blood, and I need a family member to authorise it," I said.

Suddenly, Amycus Carrow burst out laughing.

"You pathetic fool! You rule-following cretin! If you want something, be strong. Take it. And if anyone tries to stop you, deal with them. That's what I did; that's what Alecto did. You're an idiot, boy! I couldn't even i_Crucio_/i any sense into you. Typical bloody Ravenclaw: too much thinking and not enough doing! Get out! If you want blood, take it and forget the rules."

"But…"

"We're done here!" Amycus Carrow yelled. "Take me back to my cell! Take me away from this imbecile."

Before I could protest, a door opened, and Carrow left.

* * *

><p>I took Amycus Carrow's advice. He had blurred the lines for me. I told myself that he had given me permission without giving me permission. He would not sign anything, he would not legally authorise what I was about to do, but he'd said "Take it", so I would.<p>

Carrow had helped me in other ways too. When I had faced him, he had said the word, said iCrucio/i, and I'd remained standing. I had more important things to do, and I had been determined not to show weakness. It was a mask. The word still hurts me, but no one needs to know.

What I was doing wasn't really wrong, I told myself.

Getting into the mortuary at St Mungo's had proved to be a lot easier than I expected. No one, it seemed, thought that bodies needed security. I stared down at Alecto Carrow's body. A wizened grey shell; it was no more than meat and bones. Alecto Carrow had gone beyond the veil. She would never hurt anyone again.

But people would continue to be hurt, because people would continue to hurt each other. Why was Alecto Carrow dead? What difference did one death make, more or less? Why did people kill other people? Would they always find an excuse? 'He's a Mudblood.' 'She killed my sister.' Was there a difference? Was every reason valid, or was no reason valid? Where was the line?

Alecto Carrow looked much older than her years. I looked at her wizened skin, her sunken cheeks, her pale face. I knew what deathly pale really looked like. Carrow's wild hair was thin; it was falling out. That observation sparked a long forgotten memory and, forgetting the blood, I simply grabbed a dozen strands of loose hair and left.

It was after midnight, but I returned to the Ministry, to the Department of Mysteries, where I visited the Unspeakable Library. I found the book on poisons, went to my laboratory, and worked overnight. Analysing the hair was time consuming, but relatively easy, as I was certain that I knew what I was looking for. By the following morning, I had proof. I was right.

I reconsulted the book on poisons.

_Gorkract – or 'bad metal' as the Goblins call it is a rare metal, known to the Muggles as Thallium. Thallium is extremely toxic and poisoning may be achieved by oral ingestion, inhalation, or directly through the skin._

I read on, making copious notes. A large, acute, dose produced gastrointestinal effects and a rapid, if painful death. Long term, chronic poisoning tended to produce neurological manifestations. The symptoms varied wildly and included confusion, delirium, hallucinations and psychosis (which could explain Harper's suicide). Physical symptoms included minor ailments such as tiredness, headaches, lack of appetite, and crucially, as I had remembered, hair loss.

Thallium was present in Alecto Carrow's hair. Now I knew. It took months of patient, slow low-dose poisoning to subtly kill. It presented the healers with different symptoms and different causes of death. Liver failure and heart failure were fairly common diagnoses, but its insidious effects could manifest in many different ways. Thallium was a poison which presented different symptoms and caused both physical and psychological damage.

It was truly chilling.

The girl was there because she had to be. She had to slowly poison, so that the death seemed natural. Clarissa Crabbe was a heavy drinker; a small amount of Thallium in her Firewhisky would do the trick. Prosser would let no one near him, but neither would Jugson, until he fell ill. She found a way, she always found a way. Scented candles to reduce the stench of dragon dung provided a poisoned atmosphere, that's why the windows had been opened, but no candles elsewhere, because ingestion worked too.

I had the method, and I almost had the killer. I spent the rest of the day, and all of the following day, researching Marley. After school she'd spent some time in St Mungo's, as a patient. Her sister's death had affected her really badly. Later, she'd begun training as a healer, but she had left and gone travelling. She'd worked for a while in a gold mine in Macedonia. Thallium, I knew, from my research was often found in gold mines. Then she had returned to Britain and begun to kill. I still had no idea why.

I returned home and managed a few fitful hours of sleep. I spent much of the next day trying to find out more about Marley. I had very little success. Her sister, Mandy, had died from bloodloss caused by a _Septumsempra_ spell. Marley claimed that Crabbe had killed Mandy, but Crabbe claimed that her husband had taken her wand. Some mysteries remained.

I returned to my office in the Department of Mysteries late that evening and began to write a long and detailed report. Now, I could pass the entire thing over to the Aurors. I had proved that the RANDOM System worked and that it could and did, make accurate predictions of future events and trends. The Aurors were the investigators, not me.

I completed my report by working overnight. My early-edition copy of the _Daily Prophet_ was delivered to me moments before I finished.

It was obviously a quiet news day, as the headline read _Death Eater Marries Today_. The photograph of Draco and his soon-to-be wife was unflattering. I hadn't told Narcissa Malfoy about Marley, I realised. I should have warned her.

I decided to contact the Malfoy's as soon as I finished, but the moment I put down my quill, I fell asleep at my desk. I was woken in the early afternoon by Brian Bluett, a fellow Unspeakable.

"Have you heard the news, Corner?" he asked. "Someone's tracked down Mulciber and killed him. The Aurors figure that the killer managed to get some sort of an amulet from a junior baliff. The baliff in the adjoining office, somewhere in Ireland, thinks that he heard someone cast a memory charm, but by the time he investigated, they were already gone. The Aurors reckon the killer used a massive dose of poison."

It took me a few moments to process what he'd said.

It wasn't possible, Marley worked slowly. I had months before the next death. And a memory charm? What about that seemed so familiar to me? I, too was missing some time, but every time I remembered, I forgot again. Not this time. I was missing time, what had happened? I fought to remember.

Something broke, and it was Marley's memory charm. I remembered her slip about the window in Jugson's cottage, and I remembered drinking tea … and telling her about Mulciber's location.

I had discovered her secret, and she had removed that memory from me and fled, taking with her my knowledge of Mulciber's location and how to get to him.

She had changed her method, but why?

Because I knew, and she knew that I knew.

She wanted to finish quickly, which meant…

"There's a report on my desk, Bluett. Take it to the Aurors, now!" I ordered. I checked the newspaper; the reception was taking place in a marquee in the garden of the home of the Greengrass family. Security, I knew, would be tight.

"_Portus_" I shouted, turning my quill into an illegal Portkey.

I grabbed the quill as I stood up. I was still in the process of standing when I arrived outside the marquee. Lauren Cauldwell, dressed in immaculate satin robes, was marshalling the last of the guests into the colourful tent. She stared at me in disbelief.

"Is Marley here?" I asked.

"Who are you, and who is Marley?" she asked.

"Not Marley! Toni, no Betty…" I frantically scrambled through the long list for the correct name. "Dawn, Dawn Edwards!"

"You're that weird bloke who's been following me!" she said, glancing worriedly into the tent. "I will not allow you to disrupt this wedding!"

She looked terrified, but she stood determinedly in front of the tent, barring my way. Her eyes were flickering wildly around the garden. She was looking for help. She would try to eject me.

"If Dawn Edwards is here, she will be trying to poison Lucius Malfoy," I told her.

Lauren looked at me in open disbelief. "Are you having me on? This is Dawn we're talking about. Saint Dawn Edwards. She couldn't hurt an insect if it bit her, and you want me to believe she is going to kill Mr Malfoy! You are crazy!"

"My name is Michael Corner, I'm an Unspeakable. She killed Carrow, poisoned her! I have proof," I tried to speak quietly and calmly. I needed to make her believe me, but she still looked doubtful.

"You've lived in Aireside House for years. Carrow got ill soon after Dawn arrived, didn't she?" I asked.

Lauren nodded.

"She's a poisoner. If you don't believe me, Lucius Malfoy will be dead, and _that_ will certainly disrupt this wedding."

Something in my voice made her take me seriously.

"Dawn is out of work. She dropped a few hints, so I gave her a job as wine waitress. She begged to be allowed to do the top table," Lauren whispered.

We ran into the tent side by side. Lucius Malfoy was standing arm in arm with his wife, a full goblet of wine in his hand. I drew my wand and shattered the goblet. Marley stood beside Lucius Malfoy. She was dressed in claret-coloured robes, the same colour as the wine she was serving. Marley still held a flask of wine in her hands. She stared at me, and I stared at her. For what seemed like hours, no one moved. Time stopped for both of us, until the shouts and screams re-started it. Marley ducked through a flap at the back of the tent, a look of angry disappointment on her face.

"We're using the house for catering," Lauren breathed.

Rather than fight my way through the shouting throng, I ran back outside and around the tent. Lauren was following me, I realised as I dashed through the house and into a tidy little living room.

Marley stood in the middle of the room, the flask of wine in one hand, her wand in the other. She raised the wand and pointed it at my chest.


	7. Shattered Souls

**7. Shattered Souls**

By C_A_Campbell and Northumbrian

This was insane!

This was a wedding! This should not be happening.

The woman I had known as Dawn—what had Michael Corner said her name was?—stood before me. I had thought she was my friend, but by her actions she had proved that she was nothing of the sort. She was a liar, a murderess, a fraud. Even now, as her wand pointed towards the long-haired and rather untidy man who had been haunting my life, I could scarcely believe it. How could someone who had seemed so kind, so unworldly and wonderful, watch someone die? Looking at her now, however, I could believe that she had watched Carrow.

Her eyes flicked over to me and so to her wand. I shrieked, and my hand flew towards my pocket. I pulled out my wand, but I wasn't swift enough.

"_Expelliarmus!_" the murderess snapped.

My wand launched itself through the air; I watched helplessly as it flew into the corner. I met her eyes and trembled; her gaze was cold and determined. I backed toward the door, and Michael Corner stepped between Dawn—no—between Marley Brocklehurst, and me.

Michael's hands were up and open as he showed her he was wandless and defenceless. "Don't do this, Marley."

"I won't let you stop me, Michael," she said, her voice cool. "I have to do this; I have to complete my mission."

"I won't let you!"

She took a step toward him, her wand thrust forward. I stifled another shriek behind my hand, but Michael didn't flinch.

"Are you going to kill me too, Marley?" Michael demanded. His voice was unnaturally calm as I cowered behind him. "Are you going to shatter your soul again?"

Marley stared at him, her eyes wide. Then she shook as though she was having a seizure, as though his question had brought her physical pain. She stumbled away from him, and her hand opened, her fingers spread. Her wand tumbled to the floor and bounced on the white carpet, and she placed her now empty hand on her lips. "No," she moaned.

My heart stopped its frantic pounding. Michael had called her bluff. It made no sense. If what Michael said was true, Marley had killed Carrow; she had tried to kill Mr Malfoy. Yet, she refused to kill Michael. It was bewildering.

Michael hurried forward, snatching her wand from the floor. He needn't have bothered, for Marley only slumped onto the brown leather settee. She placed the flask she'd been holding at her feet, and slowly began pulling things from her pocket, a book and a little ball. A Remembrall, I realized. It flared red as Marley touched it, and she frowned down at it, before setting it on the book.

I collected my wand from the floor, locked the door and stood before it. I was certain that the Aurors would have been called by now. Merlin, what a disaster! The big wedding that was the start of a promising career turned into the scene of an attempted murder! This was awful! Yet, there was nothing I could do, but guard a murderer until the Aurors arrived.

_And they had better hurry,_ I hoped desperately.

Michael sat down on the settee beside Marley. He looked pale, strained, and he eyed Marley with a sad look at I couldn't place. Was it pity, perhaps?

"Marley," he began, but he said nothing else, only curled his fingers more tightly about his wand.

"I didn't think it would end like this," Marley whispered softly, almost to herself. "I can't believe I failed. I've served Justice for so long…so very long, Michael."

He swallowed and looked away, across the room. My eyes met his, but he swiftly looked away. He looked like he was going to cry, and I realised sharply that he had cared about this girl. I didn't know how it was possible. But then I had cared about her too, until I had found out that Dawn Edwards didn't exist. Looking at the fragile girl sitting on the settee, it was nearly impossible to believe she could have done the things that Michael claimed. She looked tiny, as though she was still sixteen and innocent.

But he was Michael Corner … his name finally registered … this hairy wild-looking man was Michael Corner, veteran of the Battle of Hogwarts. He was supposedly one of Harry Potter's friends. I examined him closely; he could be good looking, if he tidied himself up. "Crucio" Corner, Draco Malfoy had called him, because he'd been tortured in his final year.

"Do you know what it was like for me, Michael?" she asked. "To read in the _Daily Prophet_ that all these murderers, those who had shattered their souls willingly, gladly, were free; to know that the woman who murdered my sister, who split her apart, got away with it. They got to live! They got freedom, while those whose lives they had stolen lay in a box! My sister was in a box!"

"I'm sorry about Mandy," Michael said. "I am so sorry. But it doesn't excuse what you did."

"What I did?" she repeated, stunned. "I brought justice. I brought justice for those who had been denied it. I helped mothers and fathers and brothers and i_sisters_/i—" She choked, but continued, "know that the ones they loved were not forgotten. Those with shattered souls do not deserve to live."

"They had brothers and sisters, too," Michael reminded her. "Logan Harper was married. He had children, babies."

She shook and randomly reached forward to grasp the Remembrall. It flared an angry red. "It's been red since even after I remembered Mandy. I was taking Forgetfulness Potions, you see, because it was just too horrific to remember. It was easier to forget, but now I hate myself for not remembering her! And still, I'm forgetting something!" She clutched the Remembrall tightly, her fingers so tense that I thought it might shatter in her grasp. She turned to Michael, desperate for answers. "What am I forgetting?"

"I don't know, Marley. But you can break Memory Charms. I broke the one you placed on me. If it's important, you can remember." Michael told her.

"What happened after my sister died? I remember fighting Crabbe. I remember the spell coming from the wand. And then blood…blood…so much blood." She looked like she might weep, then she squared her shoulders bravely. "Then I don't remember anything. Nothing until I was at Hogwarts, reading about Crabbe's release."

Michael shrugged helplessly. "You spent time at St Mungo's that summer."

"What?" she gasped in surprise. "Why?"

He shrugged. "I don't know. It was confidential."

She stared straight ahead of her, and her eyes darted this way and that as though searching for something she couldn't find. Then she grew still. "Yes, I remember. I remember the cold of the room and the whispering of the doctors. I remember…begging them to let me testify, but they wouldn't let me. They didn't believe Crabbe killed my sister!"

Michael's gaze turned thoughtful. "Who did they think killed her?"

"I don't—" Marley froze; her mouth fell open as though attempting to make sound. For a long moment, she did nothing, said nothing. Then at last, she found her voice, just as the ball in her hand went completely white—and she screamed. I flung my hands over my mouth to stifle my own cry of alarm. I had never heard a scream like that, one of pure agony and terror. I had never seen someone tortured by a Cruciatus curse, but I imagined their screams sounded something like that. Michael took two steps back from her, a look of horror on his face.

"No," Marley shrieked. She buried her face into her hands, her long blond hair hiding her, but not stifling her cries. "No, no, no, no!"

"What is it, Marley?" Michael attempted to prise her hands from her face, but to no avail. "Please, tell me what."

Yet, she continued to scream. Michael pleaded more, and I silently hoped that the Aurors would come soon.

Marley suddenly flung her hands away. Her bright blue eyes were wide and panicked, like a crazed wild animal. "I killed her!"

"What?" Michael gasped.

"I killed her!" she repeated, over and over, beginning to rock back and forth. "It was my spell. I aimed for Crabbe, but I missed. I missed…I missed…I missed. And it hurt her. There was so much blood…so much. I ran; I was so scared. I killed her! I killed my sister!"

Michael stared at her in confounded horror, and an image was forming in my mind. _Two sisters fought side by side. Marley lifted her wand to defend her sister. The spell exploded from the wand; the Death Eater shifted just in time. The light, the spell, hit the other sister and ended her life in a moment._

Marley was screaming again. This time, I couldn't blame her. Something deep within me, that part of me that could only just imagine it being _my_ brother and _my_ spell, wanted to scream with her.

Then there was silence. It was even more terrifying then her screams, for the stillness was sudden and complete. A chill came into the air, and I shivered. Marley was unmoving, as though frozen, save for the tremble in her hands.

"I murdered her," she repeated. "And I shattered my soul."

With purposeful movements, she leaned forward, opened the book, and scratched something in with the quill that had been tucked between the pages. I could only stare, transfixed, until she leaned back and gave a satisfied nod. Michael leaned forward, and horror and understanding collided on his face. He turned desperately to Marley. "It was an accident!" he tried to reason with her. "An accident!"

I shuffled forward, peering down on what it was Marley had written. Before me was a list, a list of names. Some were crossed out—the names of those now dead—but there were two names of the living.

Those with shattered souls:

Clarissa Crabbe, John Baddeley, Bryn Prosser, Logan Harper, Karl Jugson, Alecto Carrow

The names which were not crossed out were: Lucius Malfoy, and Marlene Brocklehurst!

_Those with shattered souls?_ I pondered. And what had she said about those with shattered souls?

I looked up just in time—just in time to see Michael call out, to see Marley gulp down the wine in the flask she had held—just in time to realise that Marlene Brocklehurst was about to die.

"No!" Michael grabbed Marley's shoulders. "I can get the antidote! I can save—"

She laid a finger over his mouth and shook her head, a ghost of a smile on her face. "I deserve this."

"No!" Michael protested again. But I knew it was already too late.

With a shriek of pain, Marley tumbled to the floor. She began to seize, to clutch at her stomach, to die in the same wretched way as Carrow. Michael dropped to the floor beside her, looking distraught and helpless. I could only stand, horrified. I wanted to scream for help, but all the sounds got locked in my throat. My knees gave way and I slipped to the floor. I could only stare hopelessly on.

Marley was crying softly. Michael's hands hovered over her, as though searching for something, anything, to do. At last, he stretched his arms around her, holding her as she died.

"Leave," Marley sobbed. "I deserve to die alone."

Michael shook his head. "No one deserves that."

Marley closed her eyes and cried, clutching at her chest, at her failing heart. "I wanted to be the light, Michael," she groaned through the pain. "I never meant to be the darkness."

"I know," Michael said. Tears dripped from his nose, into her golden hair.

Her eyes stared off distantly, and she mumbled, like someone who was falling asleep, "Tell Mandy…tell her…" Then there was nothing; the wishes of a dying girl disappeared into cold silence.

I watched as the light left Marley's eyes. I watched as Michael closed her eyes, placed her head gently on the floor and stumbled away from her, staring down blankly at her body. I watched the white carpet swim before my blurring vision. I saw it all, but it took a small eternity for to realise.

Marley Brocklehurst was dead.

Michael sat on the sofa and stared at the body.

'"It's over," he said. "You should go. I'll stay with her."

* * *

><p>I met the Aurors at the front door. I don't know how my legs managed to work; I felt disconnected from my body somehow. Yet somehow, I reached the door, somehow I swung it open and ushered them in. There were three individuals in long black coats: a man in his fifties, a younger man, and a young woman.<p>

"You're late," was all I could manage. I wanted to scream at their incompetence. They were supposed to protect us. A few minutes sooner, they might have been able to stop all that had happened in that tidy little living room.

"This way," I told them.

On shaking legs, I led them through the entrance hall, past the library and into the small family living room. Michael Corner sat slumped in a chair looking at the girl's body, he had not moved since I had left him. I kept my gaze fixed on the far wall. I could not look at Dawn, at Marley, I could not comprehend the enormity of it all. It would do no good for me to fall apart now.

"Did you know her?" one of the Aurors, the young woman, asked.

"Yes—No," I corrected myself, but then I realised that my correction was a lie. I remembered her, holding cookies in a hallway, sitting across me as she listened to all my pathetic drunken stories, and teaching me kindness as she tended over Carrow. Not all of it had been real, I supposed, but it didn't mean that it hadn't happened. "Yes," I said, finally deciding that I knew the person, although not the name. "She told me that she was called Dawn Edwards, but she's Marlene Brocklehurst. Marley…" I couldn't say anymore, least I break down into tears.

The Aurors took charge. The young woman strode across to Michael while her colleagues began examining the corpse.

"Mr Corner?" she asked.

He nodded numbly.

"My name is Pepperell, Trudi Pepperell. I'm an Auror. These are my colleagues, Aurors Webb and Llewellyn. Come with me, please. We'll go through into the library, and I'll take your statement."

* * *

><p>The ruined wedding was over. I had escorted the bride and groom to their flying chariot, after their parents had assured them that all was well. I had lied to the guests, told them some ridiculous story about a deranged wine waitress, and then quickly shooed them out the door. Finally, I had told the caterers they had exactly fifteen minutes to clean up the mess and get the hell out. Now all was silent. Mr and Mrs Greengrass were sitting in their garden. Mr and Mrs Malfoy were somewhere being questioned by Aurors; I was sure it would be my turn soon. For now, I sank down on a chair in the foyer, my silver robes rustling about me. If they wanted me to tell them what I knew, they would have to come find me!<p>

And what was it I did know? An hour ago—had it only been that long? It felt like an eternity!—I had watched Dawn—Marley drink a poison and then die. I had watched someone die…

I buried my face in my hands. I tried to stop the raining tears, to keep from ruining my carefully applied makeup, but the sobs would not be controlled. I had watched her die…watched and done nothing. It replayed itself over and over in my mind as I sobbed. It seemed so meaningless, so useless. A life so young was gone in an instant.

A door clanged open, and I looked up to see Michael shuffling towards the entrance. Auror Pepperell was escorting him from the premises, and I knew it would soon be my turn to answer questions. I briskly stopped crying and wiped at my cheeks. I blanched as my fingers came away black; my mascara had run. It was no use now. Michael had reached the door.

"Michael, wait!" I called out, as I stumbled to my feet.

Michael turned. He looked tired, so very tired, as though all the fight and reason had left him.

"I have to know—" I swallowed. "—why she did it."

"You heard her," he told me.

"I know." I winced as the memories stabbed into my brain. The girl, now dead, had spoken to me only an hour ago. She would never speak again, and I could not bear to imagine her ghost. "But I don't really understand. She said it was about justice, but…"

He sighed and stared down at the floor. "What she thought was justice."

"Was it?" I demanded.

He winced and did not answer.

"Maybe," I began, but my voice was thick and I was trying to keep from choking. "Maybe I don't know what justice is. But—" I thought of all those who had died in the battle, and all the supporters of Voldemort who had got away with murder. I thought of how they had died, at the hands of a girl who had thought she was making the world a little more right, but she only made it darker. But mostly, I thought of a fragile blond body laying upon a white carpet, her blue eyes haunted by all she had done—and all that had happened to her. The tears came again. "This wasn't justice. This was horrific…this was…"

"Unspeakable," Michael said, and I thought I glimpsed tears in his eyes as well.

I cried harder, feeling the ghost of Marley Brocklehurst bearing down upon me, whispering, i_I wanted to be the light._/i

"I'm never—" I gagged on the words, on the bitter truth of them. "I'm never going to forget that girl."

"Me neither," he whispered softly. Then he opened the door and stepped out into the twilight, into the place where light and dark meet.


End file.
